OUR DEMOCRACY™

Sam Early

"The lordly Littlefield, amiably accessible, keeps his carriage at the hotel door to facilitate responses to eager calls from members of the Legislature. Night finds bright lights and abundant whiskey in hotels rooms where members, won by money, stagger joyously. Having sold a United States Senatorship, these importunate statesmen are now blackmailing the purchasers with threats of exposure, and money is forthcoming."
Description of Tallahassee under Reconstruction 
Claude Bowers, The Tragic Era, The Revolution After Lincoln

When THEY say "a danger to our democracy" they are not talking about your democracy or my democracy. Your democracy and my democracy died nearly 200 years ago. They are talking about THEIR democracy, the democracy of the rich and powerful that serves their interests, not the interests of us and our families. America changed markedly after 1848 when thousands of communist refugees ended up in the US following their failure to take a single country during Karl Marx's revolution of that year. Communists soon figured out how to work the system and gain power, wealth and influence in the U.S., until they controlled just about every way we get information. They control not just which events they want us to know about but the perspective from which they are told. A lot of people don't think for themselves and those people vote. They are easily manipulated.
   Soon after communists came to America, they began overturning election results. If you don't believe me, just ask the people of Los Angeles, Colorado or Samuel Tilden, the Democratic presidential candidate for 1876. In 1859 the people of Southern California voted overwhelmingly to secede from the rest of California and form the territory of Colorado. Denver's hinterland had not yet claimed the name; Idaho also considered calling itself Colorado early on but went with Idaho. Southern California included the counties of Los Angeles (including today's Orange County), Santa Barbara (which included today's Ventura), San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Tulare (which included today's Kern County) and San Bernardino. The California Legislature approved the measure and the Governor signed the bill. But the people's vote was overruled behind the scenes by people in Washington who did not want two more senators from outside the Northeast which would happen anyway when Colorado Territory took the next step which was to apply for statehood.

The votes were:

                                              For Separation from California                             Against Separation from California

Los Angeles Co.                      1,407                                                                              441
San Bernardino Co.                   441                                                                                29
San Luis Obispo Co.                    10                                                                              283*
San Diego Co.                             207                                                                                24
Santa Barbara Co.                      395                                                                                51
Tulare                                            17                                                                                   0

Total                                          2,477                                                                              828

 *This is the way the county clerk recorded it but most historians think San Luis Obispo County's results were accidentally transposed.

     Samuel Tilden was elected president of the US by a majority of popular votes in a seceded Southern California. He had 184 of the 185 electoral votes needed to win in the Electoral College. Rutherford B. Hayes had only 165 committed to him. It was obvious that Tilden had won the election of 1876 but, although exactly how it happened is only speculative, deals were made in back rooms to give Hayes the presidency. In return for the South's acceptance of Hayes as president, US troops were removed from its state capital buildings, court houses and streets. Eventually the Federal government would build military bases outside of major Southern cities in case Southerners got any ideas about trying for independence again. The bases were named for Southerners to give the Southern public a feeling of ease – like today's Department of Homeland Security or the Patriot Act. Fortunately, they have lost that camouflage and can now be seen for what they are: A foreign invader needing to prop up its collapsing empire by intimidating its increasingly awakening people.

     The biggest threat to OUR DEMOCRACY™ were the elections of 1860 to 1876. The rich and powerful feared the results, or potential results, of democratically held elections at this time.


     The people of the Southern states demanded elections in 1860 to give them a voice in governing themselves rather than being governed by a hostile North. They elected delegates to their state's Constitutional Conventions from a slate of Secessionists vs Unionists in Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. No one ran as a Unionist in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. South Carolina elected no Unionists; all 169 delegates to South Carolina's Secession Convention were Secessionists. In addition, all five Indian tribes of Oklahoma voted to support the Confederacy. The people of Arizona territory, where slavery was illegal, also voted to become independent from the US and "join their fellow Southerners" as they said in their declaration. The US threatened Kentucky with military invasion if the governor allowed a democratic vote; the governor backed off, not wanting his state invaded. The people organized their own election and Kentuckians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the US. The US invaded. All these states and territories voted 66% or more for the super majority needed to pass legislation in a constitutional convention. So much for your democracy and my democracy. The Federals threatened to invade Delaware if that state allowed its people the chance to vote. The legislature backed down and forbade the people the right to vote. Maryland was invaded by Federal troops and eventually became an immense prison camp. Many legally elected state and local governments would be overturned and their officials imprisoned. The Federal Government thought it could do a better job of selecting governments than the citizens of those states had done.
   
    Now we face world war because Russians who had been separated from Russia by the communist to become part of Ukraine voted to secede from Ukraine and unite with their fellow nationals. For some reason the US Government thinks it has the right and duty to override the perfectly expressed wishes of people halfway around the world. The US Government hates secession. Secession is the people firing its government when it is no longer best for them. Time to fire the US Government. It no longer works for us. It doesn't work for my democracy or your democracy. It only works for OUR DEMOCRACY™.