[The
following is a video recording of an interview of Donnie Kennedy by
Ray McBerry of Georgia First concerning the issue of State's Rights.
Ray McBerry's comments are italicized.]
Ray: Welcome to a presentation brought to you by the Exploratory
Committee for the Donnie Kennedy GOP Presidential run. I am joined
here by Walter Donnie Kennedy himself. Donnie is the best selling
author of “The South Was Right” and the “Myths of American Slavery.”
Donnie we want to discuss several issues today and the first one is
“What exactly is Real State’s Rights?”
Donnie: Well I think that you
have been listening to some of my speeches when I am
talking about Real State’s Rights. There is a big difference
Ray, as unfortunately all Americans have found out between what Our
Founding Fathers gave us and the country we have today.
Unfortunately the country we have today, we have a federal
government that nobody can really control. It is like the big bully
guy on the block that pushes everybody around. And nobody can make
the federal government abide by our charter that we bring to it –
which is the Constitution. More or less they use the Constitution as
a mat to walk upon. Real State’s Rights existed before Appomattox.
At that time we the people of the sovereign States could force the
federal government to abide by the Constitution. Today the federal
government does as it pleases.
If you remember ever reading the Kentucky and Virginia Resolves
in 1798, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Resolves in which they told the world
– and the Kentucky and Virginia Legislatures adopted these
Resolutions – that the States did not create the federal government
to be their lord and master. We created the federal government to be
our servant. And they warned us that if we did not maintain strong
state’s Rights the federal government would become our lord and
master – in essence a tyrant. And that is what we have today.
Real State’s Rights is that type of state’s rights where the
people of the sovereign states can enforce the limitations of the
Constitution upon the federal government. And that is the main
difference. And that is what we have to get back to.
It is not a Southern idea Ray, it is an American idea.
Northerners and Southerners at one time embraced this idea.
Unfortunately after Appomattox that idea is now Gone With The Wind.
Ray: Now Donnie, both the politicians in Washington and the
liberal media have basically told the American people that State’s
Rights is just a code word for racism. How do you respond to that?
Donnie: I love it when these people talk about we are using code
words. I am almost 60 years old. I say what I think. I don’t have to
run around and hide from anybody. I tell it like it is and as I
fell. If you read any of my books you can tell exactly what I feel
and what I believe. So I am not using as code words.
The idea that State’s Right is a code word for something evil is
absolutely ridiculous. I know that the liberal media, especially the
politically correct liberal media, they like to point to State’s
Rights and say, “ … Oh that was just a defense of slavery” “Oh that
was a defense of Jim Crowism, segregation, discrimination and things
of that nature” “Something that the wicked Southerners were all
about, but we don’t want that any more.”
The Truth is that State’s Rights has a very noble origin and it
comes from the North as well as the South. Northern States when they
entered this Union they embodied within their Constitution and in
their adoption of the Constitution the concept of State’s Rights.
More than anything else Ray, they feared a strong central government
that would become a tyrant.
I understand that anything can be misused, the Bible can be
misused. What was the guy who had those people down in Guyana drink
the purple organge juice ?
Ray: Jim Jones.
Donnie: Jim Jones. Thank you. Where he was a preacher. But he
misused the Bible. So there are things that can be misused. But we
don’t condemn the Bible because Jim Jones misused it. We condemn Jim
Jones and his activities. So the same thing is true whether or not
we are talking about slavery or segregation. If these things were
caused by State’s Rights it was a misuse of State’s Rights.
Now here is something that people don’t realize. Southerners are
sometimes left straddled carrying the burden of guilt for slavery
and segregation as if we were the ones who invented it. No we didn’t
invent slavery, it was invented right after the fall of man in the
Garden of Eden. It was part of our sin nature. We didn’t invent
slavery. Slavery existed up North as well as it down South. So this
is not a Southern institution we are talking about here.
And as far as segregation, I know a lot of people say well the
South is the place of segregation. Do you realize that in 1954 when
the first Supreme Court decision, Brown vs. Board of Education,
where was that board of education from? Do you recall?
Ray: Topeka, Kansas.
Donnie: Now I am not real good on geography, but I don’t think
that Kansas is down South, ToTo! So the point is – at that point in
time there were 26 States in the United States had laws that
discriminated against people of color. It was not just the South.
New York City was just as segregated as Montgomery, Alabama at that
time. This is not a Southern idea.
Another thing we got to remember – where did these laws come
from? Do you have any idea where the laws of segregation came from?
…
Most people thank they came from Georgia, South Carolina,
Mississippi. They actually came from New England. The New England
States were the first States that segregated black and white school
children. Did you know that?
As a matter of fact, when the Supreme Court of the United States
made segregation the law of the land in Plessey vs. Ferguson in
1898. Did you know that was a federal Supreme Court that did that,
Ray. That wasn’t a Georgia Supreme Court or a Louisiana Supreme
Court. That was a federal Supreme Court that said that segregation
is now the law of the land in the United States – not just the South
– in the United States of America.
Interestingly enough, of the judges that were on the Supreme
Court at that time, there was only one Southerner on that Supreme
Court. All the judges except for that one Southerner voted for
segregation. The Southerner voted against it. How many times have
you heard that Ray?
Not Often!
The guy who wrote the opinion, the majority opinion, for the
Supreme Court that made segregation the law of the land was from
Minnesota, not Mississippi. He based his concept upon a law in
Massachusetts in 1845 that segregated white and black school
children. But yet Ray, it is always the South that is dumped on and
has to carry the burden of that guilt. I am pointing this out for
point number one: Southerners aren’t the ones who invented all of
this we just have to carry the burden and number two: State’s Rights
is something totally removed from that concept.
To give you a real good idea about this – have you ever heard of
a guy by the name of Saint George Tucker. Saint George Tucker was an
American patriot from Virginia – very well known legal scholar in
the early history of the United States. He was from Virginia, he was
a Southerner. But in 1803 he wrote some of the earliest pamphlets in
opposition to slavery and in opposition to discrimination against
people of color. When is the last time that you heard this about
this great Southern Founding Father and Patriot who was opposed to
the discrimination against people of color. You don’t heard things
like that!
The reason that you don’t hear it is that you would have to say
something nice about Southerners. And oh, we can’t have that, we
only use Southerners as an evil person as somebody who we can point
our children to and say aren’t you glad you are not like those
wicked people down there in the South.
Well this campaign is about changing ideas like that.
Ray: Well folks there you have it, some truth that you didn’t
probably know about State’s Rights and about being Southern. If you
would like more information Donnie Kennedy’s campaign then we invite
you to go his website at
Donnie: I am Walter D Kennedy and I approve this message.
Paid for by the Walter D. Kennedy GOP Presidential Exploratory
Committee.
Walter D. (Donnie) Kennedy has formed a GOP Presidential Exploratory
Committee. To help Donnie carry this message into the Republican
Primaries, click
here.