Hymns to Uranus II
“Dixie,” lyrics by Daniel D. Emmet, 1859. In 1859, Daniel Emmet, a member of the popular troupe of “Bryant’s Minstrels,” was asked to provide a new song for a change of repertoire. Emmet arrived at the first rehearsal with “Dixie.” Although written by a native of Ohio, “Dixie” was picked up in New Orleans a year after its appearance, and from there on it became the favorite of the Confederacy. This song, too, is a celebration of Liberty, though today we often forget that. The tragedy of the American Civil War ultimately rests on the rending of the idea of Liberty in twain that occurred because of the institution of chattel slavery in the New World. When Europeans first encountered the New World, many were overwhelmed by its beauty and majesty, and fell in love with it - but far too many others were overwhelmed by sheer greed when they saw the apparently limitless wealth to be garnered there, if they could just generate some means of exploiting it. That means was at first ready-to-hand in the form of the natives of the New World, who, looked upon by most Europeans either as the basest of heretics and devil-worshippers or as savages without true culture or civilized ways of life, therefore were seen by the majority of Europeans as not quite human, perfect for capturing and taming as beasts of burden and hard labor. But the Indians didn’t take kindly to this. They either fought back with lethal skill and determination, or fled Westward, or, taken in captivity, lost all will to live and died rather quickly. So another source of human draft-animals had to be found. This was accomplished rather quickly. Africa had been a slaver’s paradise for centuries. Raiders from Islamic nations as well as others had been doing a thriving business in capturing and selling Black Africans as slaves over much of the Old World for a long time; now, they acquired a brand-new market, with which they happily provided their special commodity - men and women, for sale as domestic servants, field hands, or for any other purpose. The American South rapidly built up a thriving plantation economy on the basis of the labor of Black African slaves, who were hardy, industrious, easy to teach, and who had several advantages as slave-labor over the natives: they were not prone to quickly pining away and dying in captivity; they usually did not dare try to flee to the wilderness, because, unlike the natives, they knew little or nothing of the land there or how to live off it, and because of their color, they would be marked wherever they might go among whites as escaped slaves, and so usually wouldn’t try to escape to white settlements and cities. They stayed in place, and they worked, and they worked, and a whole civilization was built on their labor. That civilization, which was gracious, learned, and cultured in the extreme, was a gem among nations - save for the very institution that made it possible, an institution which was one of the ugliest of all time, the forced servitude of human beings for no fault of their own, just to serve the greed of others. It was in that civilization’s best interests to preserve its “peculiar institution,” as the institution of slavery was referred to all over the country, both North and South, and so quite naturally the South, even more than the North, cherished the idea of States’ Rights, which is preserved in the Bill of Rights as Article X: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States’, respectively, or to the people.” As a matter of fact, this is one of the most powerful possible bulwarks against the establishment of a tyrannical centralized government in a nation - that the states, districts, or counties which that nation comprises retain their dominion in all but those few areas necessary to the establishment and maintenance of the nation as a whole. This includes, for example, establishment and maintenance of state militias which together can repel any attempt by central executive power to take away their sovereign rights and powers. This principle is exactly as important, no more, no less, as that of individual liberty, as far as discouragement of establishment of a centralized national tyranny or, indeed, a tyranny of any kind in any part of that nation. By themselves, individuals cannot hold their own against a powerful government. But if they can band together in mini-governments - states - they then have the ability to defend themselves against attempted erosion or destruction of their rights by centralized authority in that nation, or even localized attempts at establishment of tyrannies. Both these aspects of liberty - states’ rights and individual rights - are necessary to the preservation of liberty for the individual as well as cities, townships, counties, and states within a nation.* During the American Civil War, not only was brother set against brother, but one cornerstone of liberty was arrayed against the other, making foes of those which, by right, should have remained the staunchest of allies forever. And the result of the war was ambiguous in the extreme. For while, as a legal institution, chattel slavery was finally outlawed in this nation at the end of the Civil War, and the principle of individual liberty was upheld as supreme, the principle of states’ rights, so necessary in the long run to preservation of the liberties of individuals, was, if not utterly destroyed, then critically damaged, perhaps irreparably. In honor, then, of those men and women who, like those in the North, fought so long and so valiantly for their land and its ideals, and who thus were also defenders of Liberty, if only in part, the song “Dixie” is included here.
I wish I was in de land ob cotton,
Old times dar am not forgotten,
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
In Dixie Land whar I was born in,
Early on one frosty mornin’,
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Chorus: Den I wish I was in Dixie,
Hooray! Hooray!
In Dixie Land I’ll take my stand
To live and die in Dixie;
Away, away, away down south in Dixie.
Away, away, away down south in Dixie.
Chorus:
Old Missus marry Will de Weaber,
Willyum was a gay deceaber;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
But when he put his arm around ’er,
He smiled as fierce as a forty-pounder,
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Chorus:
His face was sharp as a butcher’s cleaber,
But dat did not seem to greab ’er,
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Old Missus acted de foolish part,
And died for a man dat broke her heart.
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Chorus:
Now here’s health to the next old Missus,
An’ all the gals dat want to kiss us;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
But if you want to drive ’way sorrow,
Come and hear dis song tomorrow.
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Chorus:
Dar’s buckwheat cakes and Injun batter,
Makes you fat or a little fatter;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Den hoe it down and scratch your grabble,
To Dixie’s land I’m bound to trabble.
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
*If the principle of States’ Rights were still in full force, one wonders what would have happened after April of 1993 and the burning of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas by agents of the federal government? Texas could have gone to war with the United States over it - and might well have done so, unless enormous reparations were paid to her by the federal government for its actions. But since that principle is now honored almost entirely in the breach, the states have no power to defend themselves against encroachments of federalist oppressions, and any attempts they may make to do so are largely a joke and will remain so unless and until that right is reclaimed by people and all the states.
5. Liber OZ, by Aleister Crowley: A Thelemic Bill of Rights
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law!
Every man and every woman is a Star.
THERE IS NO GOD BUT MAN
1. Man has the right to live by his own law, to live in the way that he wills to do:
to work as he will;
to play as he will;
to rest as he will;
to die when and how he will.
2. Man has the right to eat what he will;
to drink what he will;
to dwell where he will;
to move as he will on the face of the Earth.
3. Man has the right to think what he will;
to speak what he will;
to write what he will;
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will;
to dress as he will.
4. Man has the right to love as he will.
5. Man has the right to kill those who would thwart those rights.
Love is the law, love under Will.
6. “A Voice at the Edge of Dream,” by Yael Dragwyla, 1979: A Psalm to Liberty
I will make of you
A white shadow on a black wall -
Come, look deep into
The furnace of my soul,
And lose all care.
I will make of you
Cracked green glass in a wilderness
And a grey wail expanding in the night.
You deny that I exist,
Yet I am your very bones -
And you wonder why
You dream of skulls
And waken full of dread?
I will make of you
A white shadow on a black wall -
And a black illumination
Of exposed white guilt.
I am Trinity
And a child’s white shadow
On a scorched black wall
And the cries you will not hear
In the night.
I will make of you
A blinded thing
Who can no longer will
Not to see:
I am Hiroshima
And your fleeing soul -
And all that lies ahead of you is me,
And all that lies behind you is me,
And all that lies within you is me,
And if you want it otherwise
You must acknowledge me.
I am the Phoenix -
And thou art me.
You must accept my many deaths -
Or perish utterly.
7. “List of Cities That No Longer Are” -an atomic-age nursery-rhyme (repeat three times for maximum effect):
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Eniwitok, Bikini;
Alamogordo, Port Chicago, Chernobyl - TRINITY!
8. The Declaration of Independence by the United States of America from Great Britain
In Congress, July 4, 1776
A Declaration
by the Representatives of the United States of America,
in General Congress Assembled
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. - Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused is Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the man time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation;
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, for punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States;
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world;
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent;
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury;
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences;
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies;
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of out Governments;
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the times of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. - And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.