The Victor School A School Of Justice Resource Institute: Fill & Download for Free

The American Civil War thing.Simple minds think it was about slavery.Superficially erudite minds think it was about states’ rights.Learned minds think it was about slavery.Why this is the case provides a wonderful exploration of the difference between history and popular memory.This is going to be long. I ask for your indulgence, patience, and forgiveness in advance. But I do think it’ll be a fun and informative read.Still with me?Good!Allons-y!I. Article IV.Historically speaking, it’s indisputable that slavery was the sine qua non of the civil war. You don’t have to take my word for it. You do, however, have to take the words of the secessionists for it.But which words, and when?You can’t trust what the secessionists said after they’d already lost the war; at that point, they were trying to argue their case before the court of history. They were making an appeal for the sympathy of future generations of Americans. Their arguments at that point were necessarily self-serving.We’re not mean and cruel people; we were kind, patriotic Americans who fought to defend our states. Slavery wasn’t a cruel institution; our negroes were happy. We didn’t want a war; this was a war of Northern aggression.What you have to do is to go back to 1860-1, to the time they were seceding, before they thought they needed any sympathetic ear but that of other people in the South who agreed with them, long before they thought they could be defeated in a military conflict.With that in mind, let’s briefly walk through what they had to say.South Carolina was the first state to secede.On December 24, 1860, it adopted a document with the rather grandiloquent title of Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.The first part of the document discusses the theory of why the secessionist believed they had the right to secede, namely that since the sovereign states had agreed to coalesce into a greater unit under the auspices of certain promises that had been repeatedly broken by a perfidious North, the South had the right to dissolve a union it had voluntarily entered.But then the document delves into the aforementioned “immediate causes.”It does this by discussing Article 4 of the Constitution.Okay, Article 4. What of it?Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3. Also known as the Fugitive Slave Cause.No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.In plain English, this states that a slave (a person held to service or labour in one state, under the laws thereof) couldn’t be freed ( discharged from such service or labour) for fleeing to another state but would be returned (delivered up) to his/her owner (party to whom such service or labour may be due).Let me quote some key passages from the Declaration:This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.If it weren’t for that guarantee that our property would be protected, we wouldn’t have joined the union.The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.This is the crux of the complaint.We had a constitutional deal where you were supposed to return our escaped slaves. You’ve passed a bunch of local laws that in effect nullify the constitution and some of you won’t even let us carry our slaves into your state! You broke the deal. We’re out.We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.Northerners have:assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions. That would be slavery.denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution. They won’t let us take our slaves with us anywhere in the nation.denounced as sinful the institution of slavery. Self-explanatory.permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They allow abolitionists to operate freely in their attempts to eloign—to take far away—our slaves from us.encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their home—self-explanatory—and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection. And they’re trying to get our slaves to revolt against us.…ergo, we are leaving the union.That’s the argument in a nutshell.II. Alexander H. Stephens.Stephens was the Vice President of the CSA. As the war went on, he became a shriller and shriller critic of Jeff Davis and the ever-increasing concentration of power in the executive, then as now under the strains of war.But on March 21, 1861, long before he turned into a disenchanted curmudgeon, and shortly before the attack on Fort Sumter, Stephens gave a speech famous among Civil War historians and aficionados: the Cornerstone speech.The speech features a series of contrasts between the former union and the new one, intended to be a list of reasons why the Confederacy is an improvement on the U.S. Constitution.After talking about tariffs, infrastructure, executive-legislative relations, presidential term length, it delves into the chief reason why the confederacy is vastly superior to both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.I don’t want to speak too much for the man. So let’s let him speak for himself:But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other -- though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.Here it is. The Vice-President of the CSA is calling African slavery, “the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.”Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."Jefferson and his generation were wrong to assume that slavery was wrong and that all races were equal.Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition.Here, the reported noted that there was applause.The VP of the Confederate States was being applauded for saying that the cornerstone of the foundation of his nation is the “truth” of negro inferiority.Why, then, when this is so clear and as close to a slam-dunk case as you’ll find in the historical record, are so many people, even today, so convinced that the war was about some principle grander than racism and venality?3. The court of history.It’s often said that history is written by the victors. That’s a truism. It would be more accurate to say that history is the final battlefield on which a war is waged. Often, it is the side that won the physical war that gets to enshrine its version of events into the pages of history. This is the scenario we’re all familiar with. Sometimes, it’s a draw, as in many modern conflicts where there is an abundance of sources from both sides of a conflict. But sometimes, it is through the eyes of the losers that we get to observe the conflict: it is through Thucydides, an Athenian general, that we get to learn about the Peloponnesian War, since the Spartans left us no sources. In the case of the American Civil War, it is not that the North left no sources; rather, the North, thoroughly satisfied that it had held the moral high ground, had no sense of urgency about making its case before the court of history. The South, on the contrary, had just such an incentive and just such a sense of urgency.They had tried and failed to found an entire society predicated on the enslavement of one race by another. Their worldview had fallen out of favor with Western Civilization. Without a vigorous effort on their part to rehabilitate their image, they were in danger of going down in history as a hateful bunch of despicable rebels who loved their heinous ideology so much that they were willing to shed the blood of their countrymen over it.So, fueled by a zeal that only despair can provide, they poured their energies into manufacturing a new history of war. They were so successful that it is still the version that millions of American children learn each year. It is still part of what many, and perhaps most, Americans think they know:It had never been about Slavery. Slavery was incidental to the whole thing. It was a conflict about whether states had the right to decide their own laws for themselves.R. E. Lee was a knight from a bygone age, a true hero, personally against slavery, but fighting only because he loved Virginia so much.Grant was nothing but an untalented butcher, who only defeated Lee because, cold-hearted as he was, he was willing to just throw his numbers at Lee and let his superior resources in men and materiel deliver victory to him.Slavery wasn’t bad and the slaves were happy.The South never stood a chance to win but fought anyway because the cause was so noble that it needed to be defended. The advantage enjoyed by the North in men and materiel was simply too great and the ultimate defeat of the South was a foregone conclusion before it started.This last point gave its name to this school of thought: the Lost Cause. It’s a rhetorically-effective, though academically unrigorous line of argument. In actuality:It was definitely about slavery, as I demonstrated earlier.R. E. Lee was very comfortable with slavery.Grant may not have been as great a tactician as Lee, but he was the greatest grand strategist the war produced on either side. What’s more, Lee was by far the greater butcher, demanding far more of his troops and exposing them to much greater dangers on a regular basis.The fact that the South was so deathly afraid of slave rebellions gives the lie to the notion that slaves were happy in bondage. After all, has anyone ever been known to revolt out of an excess of euphoria?The war’s conclusion was not preordained. Had the South held on for just a few months without a major defeat, Lincoln would have been defeated and McClelland would have signed a negotiated peace. But Philip Sheridan triumphed in the Shenandoah Valley and Sherman took Atlanta and the demoralized North, its spirits revived, decided to push on for total victory. It was a very close thing. It is those campaigns, long after Gettysburg, that determined the fate of the war. The South, on the whole, had a much better chance of victory than the 13 colonies had during the Revolutionary war.But intellectual rigor is not what counts. The South had a compelling narrative that it wanted to believe, so it embraced it. The North, 20 or so years after the Civil War, got tired of fighting for Black civil rights, and embracing the Lost Cause narrative provided a good starting point to patch things up with the South. After all, if everyone on both sides had been valiant and negroes had been content before Northern agitators came to put ideas in their head, what was there to fight about? Couldn’t we just agree that the white man on both sides of the conflict was manly and valiant and patriotic?So, this narrative, full of flaws as it was, was what passed into the popular memory of the war. It is not, however, grounded in fact. And next time you hear someone talk about how the war was not about slavery, you can be sure of at least one thing: they are completely unfamiliar with primary sources; they are only superficially erudite.

Yes, Education is currently greatly privileged, with financial burdens serving to be a limiting force for many potential students. The ultimate tool to really increase the abundance of educational opportunities begins at lowering if not removing entirely, the tuition of college and treating it as a common good. Free college is not some mystical fantasy, as it has indeed existed in the past and still does exist in small institutions scattered across india. The notion of EARN AND LEARN can only exist with EDOOFA, however, as the cost of tuition which is base on EARN WHILE YOU LEARN IN INDIA remarkablylower. Education is one of the key components that bring growth and progress into society. The more people in a society are educated, the more they can provide a beneficial contribution to their environment. This fact increases the importance of education in society and has resulted in governments investing in education more than ever before.Another fact that adds value to the importance of education is that it has an essential role in an individual’s life. In an era of “Lifelong Learning” understanding the importance of education is also the ultimate key to success. Victor hugo says " he who opens a school door closes a prison".In general, the College Board considers the practical benefits of higher education in the 21st century to include:Economics the Bureau of Labor Statistics stats reveal, people with some form of higher education earn more money and have a lower probability of unemployment.2. HealthGainful employment and a positive cashflow take away the stress factors associated with financial insecurity. As such, you are likelier to live a happier and healthier life with some form of college under your belt.3. Civic involvement: People with gainful employment and financial resources often give back to the community. When you earn well and your network expands, you are more likely to give to charity and become involved in volunteer work.4. Personal development: People with careers tend to lead more structured lives and have a stronger sense of responsibility, traits that serve as strength-builders in other areas of life.5. Better communication: Most jobs involve some form of written or verbal communication. As such, you will generally improve in both areas during your college and professional career.6. Realization of passions: As with most people, the more you learn, the likelier you are to find your true passions in life. Through the education process, you can explore the various facets of a prospective field and find your strengths.7. Greater sense of discipline: The regiments of education can instill you with the discipline required in the professional world. By learning to follow complex instructions and meet strict deadlines, you will be better prepared for the rigors of the marketplace.8. Sense of accomplishment: Each time you complete a school assignment or job task, it’s the product of your talent and hard work.

A word of warning this may be a very long answer.It all depends on the starting point. Is the country already existing with a history? is this the foundation of a completely new state?Some of the points do overlap but there are a few that don't. I'll go with a mix of the two. A new state but formed out of an existing group of people.So the first thing that I would do is some research. I would look at all of the other countries and their worst moments in history. Those bits that make for awkward conversations. Things like slavery, Hitler, The USSR in eastern Europe. I would then look at where they went wrong and how they got to that point. So to quickly go over those three. Slavery started as an extension of existing slavery in Africa. It then became something that Europeans could make a profit from and they changed the older form of slavery into a monolithic race-based institution. This institution still affects the psychology of the modern US. The core component was profit over people. People were treated badly so others could make piles of money.Hitler came about due to the state that Germany was in after WW1. even today we can see a rise in the far right across Europe due to the mishandling of countries by governments. Indigenous people are pitted against immigrants by government propaganda. Partly this is to sway the populations away from the real issues of a failing economic model that is hurting most people. Blame shifting if you will. Now Hitler came to power due to similar reasons. The treaty of Versailles destroyed Germany. The country was forced to admit guilt for everything. They were forced to pay for everything. They were told what they could or could not do by the Victors. They were also deprived of land and manufacturing. Essentially the country was crushed to the point that they wanted to blame someone and wanted a leader that would make their country great again. From this, we can take the concept that destroying the will of the people will backfire spectacularly.Similar lessons can be learnt from the USSR. Touted as a communist system that it wasn't. It was a straight up dictatorship. The people were oppressed and when they pointed out issues with the system and the fact it was not doing what it was supposed to they were 'disappeared' or had tanks roll into their cities. The people eventually got fed up, organised themselves and threw off the USSR. The lesson learnt here is that if you have a basic concept that seems to work don't twist it for power or money. Don't oppress people or use a secret police.Some basic lessons that boil down to power and profit as drivers destroying systems and countries. So any system created would have to consider how they were to limit these issues.The first thing that you need is an economy. Now there are some great new ideas out there but something more like the current systems would likely be more palatable to the modern human psyche. Most economies are based on a barter system with money used as a medium. So set up a monetary economy to start off with. I wouldn't use the current model though. That has been shown to not work (see above about learning from past mistakes). At first to create a stable economy you need checks and balances to stop things getting out of hand. A big issue in the UK at the moment is the price of housing. It has far outstripped people's ability to pay for it. So first limit the number of houses people can have to 1 per person in the household. That means if you have, say 2 children and there are two parents then until they children come of age (I'll use the base standard of 18 here) the family can own 4 houses. The children hit 18 and they have to have one of the houses transferred to them if the person wishes to keep it in the family. This simple cap stops private landlords grabbing a lot of property together and commanding the market. To do that you would need a business. Business can be regulated if there is need so that balances it out.People now have somewhere to live. The now need utilities. I would go straight to Elon Musk. I would work with him to power everything with solar power. That can be done on an individual scale (all new property has to have solar panels to power it) and also on a national scale. That would be for national and communal buildings and also as a backup for all of the homes. Excess energy could then be set up as an export commodity. The government could purchase this off of citizens to sell on. Everyone is happy. Now they need water well I would go for desalination plants. While there are some issues with the by-products that would be left to scientists to sort out (I'll come to science funding later). This means that there is an unlimited water supply. No droughts ever. These plants could be combined with turbines to generate electricity as well keeping the costs low.Transport for people would again go electric. With so much solar energy investment there are easy ways of rolling this out. This means there would be next to no pollution. Also with a market for electric cars and some competition that would improve the cars rapidly. There would be public transport run by the state. State-run public transport allows for consistency and integration across the whole country. If everyone can use it then it would limit private transport keeping the roads emptier. This then has the effect of making shipping easier and reducing the frustration of commuters making people happier and thus more productive.Well, the people need to be healthy. There would be a national health service. There would also be an opt-out option. You could opt out of the national health service upon proof of private health insurance. Emergency treatment would still be nationalised with no opt out unless the private health firm could supply such a service to an acceptable level. This system allows everyone who needs it to receive healthcare. It also marries the systems of nationalisation and private well. having a national health option also means that private companies aren't going to be able to jack up their prices as they would lose customers and thus you get around the exorbitant medical fees issues.Now there needs to be a system of government. how about a radical democratic system. Decisions aren't made by representatives. The representatives are actually more like the civil service. They facilitate things and discuss issues offering solutions. This system has issues with the speed of decision making. Sometimes quick decisions need to be made so how do you get around that? Well here is the radical bit. You speed the whole thing up by use of digital technology. You can have computers on the street (similar to those seen in large population centres) These booths will have a list of laws and proposals. people can log in and simply vote for each one that is put up. This can also be done through an app as modern countries have such a high number of mobile phones and portable technology. The system itself could work in a similar fashion to Quora. You have the topics which you know about or are interested in tagged so are notified when there are votes that can be made. You also do away with elections like they are now. You make them more fluid. Each elected official will have a set of tasks they were voted in on. They will then have targets. So say someone was elected as they would introduce a new bill to sort out transport issues. They would have to do that within a set time. The bill wouldn't have to pass but an attempt to do that within the time limit set would count. If you missed your targets then you would be out of office. This is accountability which is sorely lacking in a lot of countries politicians.Approval ratings could be used but as the system is fluid and based on targets for laws etc. then you wouldn't need them. If the people were given the choice of whether to pass a bill into law or not then the choice is out of the politicians hands. Obviously, you could throw in mechanics for constant rejection of bills. This would be a missed target so the person is ejected from the office as they aren't doing what the people want. This forces politicians to listen to people. To change the system up there would be a tiered system of government. Each area would have a council (think town council type). Then there would be counties and then national. Nothing radical here at first. Now the interesting bit comes when you decide what each of those groups do. You split tasks up so national defence is only discussed and ideas put forward by the national group. Lower level interests go to the specific group. Obviously, there would be a lot of cross-pollination but that would be done jointly. This means minor local issues don't take up time or get ignored when there are national issues.An important point here is the Quorum needed for a decision to take place. This is part of the speeding up of the process. You set a time limit, say 1 week to 1 month, depending on the law or decision. In that time, there have to be enough backers for the law to pass. 51% or higher of the voting populace eligible (ie. a town decision would have the population of the town as the total needed). This forces engagement with politics. If people want things done they will have to do them or make a decision. This removes a certain amount of blame. If you are part of the decision you have had your say. If you just ignore issues they won't go away. A problem with the bin collections that needs sorting? Stop bitching about it to your mates in the pub and grab your phone to vote on the issue. People feel more enfranchised as they are asked directly. A Kickstarter for politics system.So criminals and a code of law. A simple constitution would be a good idea. The laws in the constitution could be amended by a vote at the national level with a set percentage for passing of say 80% for. Minimum participation of 75% or it doesn't change. criminal law will be discussed and decide in its basic form by lawyers and academics. Simple rules like no guns, no racism etc. The particulars could then be put forward and voted on. Courts would be jury based with the judge there to oversee the proceedings and point out particular bits of law. A simple, codified system of laws would allow for a quicker process. A population more engaged with politics will likely be better educated to allow them to vote about issues with some knowledge. This means a fairer jury. Punishments would be prison or community service of some sort. sentences would be straight up sentences with no time off for any reason. This mitigates issues of someone playing nice when in prison to get out quicker when it is an act. It is also fairer across the board and is simple if a little draconian. It means if convicted you will know what your sentence will be. before you commit a crime you will know what the sentence is etc. Miscarriages of justice are handled through the voting system. This would be the appeal system. With enough votes you then get an appeal that you can choose to use or not. If you are a non-national all visas are revoked and you will serve the sentence and then be deported. If that is codified that means that issues of diplomatic immunity and buying people off aren't a problem.Religion. There would be freedom of worship. There would be no religious courts allowed at all. Anyone can live by their religious rules but the societal law system that is in place has made a decision on acceptability. Simply put you can have your religion but it will be completely separate from the state in all ways.So how will this economy be funded? Well, Taxes obviously. Want something as a group then you all throw in for it. So you will be shown the cost of a project that you are voting on if it passes. The tax will then go up by that amount overall. The government will be run as a non-profit organisation where the population are the shareholders. Therefore, everyone pays the same amount of tax and receives the same rebate. This means that on the basic level if you want a town bin collection that everyone will have to chip in X to pay for that. Some things like this you could opt out of. You don't pay for the bin man but you don't have your bin collected. While at first it may seem that there would be issues with wealth inequality ie. Those who can't afford it voting no and having less this would be mitigated by certain other measures. For example, these systems could be combined with a basic wage for everyone. As all costs are calculated it would be known that X amount was needed to live on. Any earnings above that level are pure profit to the person. Now there are a few exceptions when it comes to peoples ability to work (That would be a different matter of state support for certain types of people such as those physically or mentally disabled, maternity and paternity rights etc.) the initial amount is not taxed at all. That means that those who choose not to work may not be able to afford certain things. This is acceptable because everyone has an income that they can live on. Pooling resources is then a personal choice. Don't want to work then you don't have to but you won't have anything to put in the pool for more than basic services. As I mentioned above those with difficulties would receive extra help depending on what society deems is the amount needed and voted for.Education would be free at the point of purchase and would be state run. This would continue until 18. Obviously, people could vote more money in or out of the system if they wished. Under fund education and have bad employees for your company. Well, you only have your own greed to blame as you had to vote on the decision. This system would be module based rather than level based. So for example in the UK, at universities, you pick modules and have compulsory modules. They are all given a level and a points score. You build the degree that way. The difference would be that there would be no Degree at the end of it. You simply have a certificate for each module you, therefore, aren't limited and can choose more or less.This means employers could have job adverts that say specific things such as I need an employee with X modules and three others at this level. You could then build a portfolio. After compulsory education, you then have the option of doing more for free or paid. Free it comes out of the voted pool of money so say you can have X amount of extra modules for free as paid by tax. Again opt-outs. Don't opt in and you have to pay individually. As there are no private education institutions qualifications can be balanced across all schools. The particulars of how people are taught and the standards would be left to teachers to decide on. They would then submit it to a vote.So back to voting for a second. Individual people could put up issues for voting. Similar to the petition system in the UK at the moment. These could then be vetted and would have to be yes or no answers. The option of rewrite would be there. So if there was something that stopped you voting yes it could be kicked back and amended.I could go on for a lot longer but that system would be the basis. I'll happily add more in if people ask.