Lincoln's public utterances concerning slaves are troubling. As a lawyer he represented slave-owners in support of the Fugitive Slave Act. Lincoln's steadfast dedication to keeping Illinois a "free" state meant that there would be no Negro slavery is Illinois because Negroes would not be allowed to settle in Illinois. Illinois would be a free state: a Negro-free state.
What did Jefferson Davis say the "intolerable grievance" was?
He said it was NOT the tariff. He said it was the North talking badly -- "denoucing" the spread of slavery to the new states (territories).
Let me repeat that - your own president specifcially said it was NOT the tariffs. In his own book. He claims instead it was the North (Lincoln's) denounciation of spreading slavery to the territories.
Yes -- the Civil War really was about the spread of slavery after all.
They just hated the thought of Blacks being free. I guess that's why they said in the C.S.A. constitution that if any slave escaped from one confederate state to another he was a free man. This was designed to gradually end slavery.
This guy should stick to economics and leave history to historians. Tariffs are scarcely mentioned by the southern leaders in their declarations of secession. If the North was trying to rip the South off, how does he explain why the Morrill Tariff was passed a year after the south left the Union? The south promptly instituted its own tariff after secession. European nations had plenty of money to buy both southern cotton and northern grain. And the southern planters made a killing on cotton.
The Morrill Tariff was passed in the 1859-60 congress, obviously well before secession (it didn't take effect until 1861 but it wasn't like Lincoln was going to veto it after he made protectionism the keystone of his campaign). Also Davis and Lincoln prominently mentioned protectionism in their inaugural addresses. Lincoln was willing to ensure slavery in the South but threatened military force if tariffs weren't enforced.
The Morrill Tariff passed the Senate in March 1861 (I was mistaken about it being '62!) Lincoln didn't threaten military force for nonpayment of tariff duties. He stated that he would defend Federal installations & property, and expressly stated that there would be no military force unless it was provoked, which turned out to be the case.
Link? It's been awhile since i took US history but i'm pretty sure it was passed in early 1860. It might have been passed by the House but stalled in the Senate, but i don't think it could have been defeated given Republican success in 1860. Also Lincoln definitely mentioned collecting duties in his inaugural address but said he wouldn't interfere with slavery. As for being provoked, SC even offered to buy the remaining government properties.
>Tariffs are scarcely mentioned by the southern leaders in their declarations of secession.
They were mentioned by lincoln, at length. The south didn't want to go to war, the North did. Therefore, all that matters is what the north was fighting for.
Regardless, at the very least, tariffs are far more at fault than slavery--which is commonly thought of as the main reason for the "civil war."
If the North wanted to go to war, why was Major Anderson at Fort Sumter under orders to do nothing to provoke a war? If they wanted war, they'd have fired on the Confederates on Morris Island as soon as they opened up on the Star of the West. If tariffs were the central issue, the secessionist leaders would have said so in their justifications for secession. South Carolina's document doesn't even mention tariffs. In a nutshell, slavery caused secession, and secession caused the war.
> In a nutshell, slavery caused secession, and secession caused the war.
How? Secession wasn't illegal. The south was a legal, sovereign nation. What caused the war was Lincoln's want for a war. All the south wanted was independence.
This was Lincoln's description of the war: 1) south is not a real country 2) since they are not a real country, they are part of the US and therefore have to pay US taxes 3) they are not paying US taxes 4) we must enforce the tax
Secession wasn't legal or illegal. The Constitution is silent on it. And if the Constitution was nothing more than a treaty between states; where any state could leave any time it felt like it, why even bother drafting a constitution? What's the point of a union if this was the case? The only way the Union could be legally dissolved is if 2/3 of the states concur. That wasn't the case here.
A contract is something you can voluntarily join. If one of the sides doesn't hold up to his end, then you have the right to leave it. That is precisely what happened: the Northern states were levying unconstitutional taxes, so the Southern states seceded.
Nope. Tariffs are and were perfectly legal. The real issue was the North's growing population--hence its growing power in the previously Southern-dominated government. The South wanted to institutionalize slavery nationally and wanted the government and the people to support and protect it wherever they chose to take it. When they were told this wasn't possible, the South broke the contract by leaving the government which had shielded its "institution" for so long instead of working within it.
> The South wanted to institutionalize slavery nationally
So did lincoln, read his first inaugural address; or just the wikipedia summary
You keep on talking about how this was all about slavery. Why don't you READ the emancipation proclamation and all the exceptions it made. The north had slavery in some states (jersey) even after the war was over.
Nope. Lincoln said in this speech that he didn't intend to interfere with slavery where it existed. Slavery was already institutionalized in the South. I've read the EP. It freed only those slaves in areas under rebel control. The EP has no bearing on the fact that fears over the future of slavery led the South to secede.
galoon no kidding genius - since EP came AFTER the war started. Where do they find brilliant like yours?
What did Davis do when he read the EP? He threatened to exterminate the slaves. Several times. We dont hear about this now - but several Southern leaders, including Davis -- talked about "extermination" of the slaves --one Southern leaders said they would have to kill all the slaves rather than free them.
The South were Nazi fucks, we have covered up their insanity too long.
But... but, if Davis exterminated the slaves he would've destroyed the Southern economy. I put this myth up there with "Lee wanted to send the slaves back to Africa. " It was Lincoln, not Lee for the same reason I mentioned before.
self -- it was very rational to whip 5 slaves so 100 would not run away.
Also -- allowing 5 to run away, and not catching them - meant another 5 would run away. That's why Lee and the South would spend MORE to catch a slave than he was worth. To whip him in view of the other slaves was the only way to make slavery sustainable.
Also, southern states actually reimbursed owners if their slaves were executed.
Okay, but you're not addressing the actual point and that is no rational individual is going to remove entirely his ability to earn income from something he knows he can earn income from. You implicitly agreed with the principle yourself by your statement that a slaveowner will sacrifice a few slaves in order to keep the majority in attendance. The initial point remains...
Your initial point is full of shit, Of course slave owners would whip their slaves - otherwise, they would have no slaves. Slavery was based on terror.
What part of this dont you grasp? If you executed a slave--- you actually got paid for it. Wrap your head around that.
Once again, you're either willfully ignoring the dynamic taking place or cannot comprehend that a slave is an individual who performs manual labor for a master. The master views this labor as valuable o/w, if he is not to be defined solely as a sadist, he would not enslave; whipping is NOT destruction of your CAPITAL.
I could extend this point further to what the gov't does to taxpayers as a corollary, but I do not want to hijack the current topic selfishly.
"The master views this labor as valuable o/w, if he is not to be defined solely as a sadist, he would not enslave; whipping is NOT destruction of your CAPITAL."
But execution of offending slaves would be, and this certainly took place for the same purpose as whipping them.
They key point being illustrated is the notion of making an example of one to send a message to the many -- follow this one's lead and you will suffer his end.
For a slaver, that is cost management, and quite rational.
I do have a lot more to learn about southern secession and I will gladly endeavor so, but your pretentious handle on what the civil war was 100% about is weak. You mean to tell me the sole reason why several states seceded was due to a reason given by a single man (Davis, who many southern apologists claim to have been incompetent and a poor choice, but I'll reserve judgement until I can personally conclude that) who was elected after the fact?
Toombs said it - -Yancey said it -- Stephens said it -- the official Declarations of Secession said it. Have you read the Southern offical Declarations of Cuases? The Cornerstone speech?
Have you read the addresses to the secession conventions?
Did you read the history books written BY the South right after the war?
If not -- they are very interesting and a far cry from what you hear now.
Okay, let's take this path further; I find it interesting and potentially productive for at least myself.
What of the tariffs imposed? Were they "just" or even constitutional? Was it constitutional for the North to subdue the South and force them back into fellowship? Is it not a contradiction to the Revolutionary War; we did afterall SECEDE from the British Empire with the Declaration of Independence. The United *STATES* afterall was seen as a VOLUNTARY union of seperate states.
What of the individual accusations made that Lincoln repeatedly violated the constitution? What of the railroad lobbyism? The matter at hand has been dealt with more by historical enthusiasts on the factual basis of certain information, but I would like instead the matter to be put within a context of Constitutional Law and Tyranny. I would like these issues addressed fairly.
I haven't finished watching the multiple videos DiLorenzo has made on Lincoln, but my own viewing of Rothbard's
So the slave rapers -- those who bought and sold children, those who stopped freedom of speech, freedom of press for decades in the South, who stopped real elections and the exchange of ideas -- and who said God wanted them to enslave milions -- they were the liberty party?
ANd the guy that stopped those fucks -- who wouldnt let them spread slavery -- he was the bad guy?
The state religion that exists today is what I mean by it. Statist historians dominate the literature and they always abide by hagiography of men who grew the state the most (Lincoln, FDR, etc.). There's a correlation between how exalted the statesman is and, again, how much he grew gov't. People like Harding and Cleveland are naturally ignored.
You have to remember most historians don't know a lick of economics or law; they simply push rationalizations as priests of the state.
@selfrealizedexile I agree with you on FDR. By foisting Social Security on us and taking income tax directly from our paychecks, he furthered our course down the road to big government. Ironically, the President who grew the state the most was Woodrow Wilson, a Southerner from Virginia! The permanent income tax that he supported and signed into law started us down that road. Over half of those with history degrees end up as lawyers and this economist (DiLorenzo)knows little of history!
@selfrealizedexile "Priests of the state"--this sounds like something O'Reilly or Hannity would say (and I agree with them most of the time!) What DiLorenzo did in this book was basically take Lincoln out of the historical environment in which he operated. Congress's attempts at compromise on territorial expansion with regard to slavery are marginalized in his work, yet they were the arena in which the hostility between North and South manifested itself and made disunion and war a reality.
Priests of the state originated with Murray Rothbard when he was discussing the symbiotic relationship between intellectuals the market does not desire (priests, liberal arts professors, writers, etc.) and the state, the former espousing rationalizations for the state's 'justified' existence. I'm not certain if he was the first, but he was probably the most popular. Rothbard was light years ahead of O'Reilly or Hannity who are neocon establishment figures.
War of Northern Aggression was not about ending slavery or racism in the South, but, rather, maintaining the Federal gov't's power over more territory and money as is most history about. This isn't an apologist for racism or slavery telling you this, but, rather, a realist.
@selfrealizedexile The North's primary goal was putting down the rebellion and preserving the Union. The destruction of slavery was one of the consequences of the war. Why do you believe the war was about increasing government power and control over territory and money? When Ft. Sumter was attacked by the rebels, what choice did Lincoln have when the Northern people demanded he stand up to the South with more determination than Buchanan had showed?
Preserving the Union was only valuable to a gov't because it preserved a higher level of power through tariff revenues. You must see that. "Destruction' of southern slavery didn't really occur quickly and it entailed an incredibly brutal exit route that didn't have to be so--several thousand lynchings, racist unions, laws, etc.
It's unfettered hyperbole to believe the South would attack the North. I'm no pro-southern Confederate gov't, but the North was not just in subduing
@selfrealizedexile Prior to the Civil War, the tariff provided very little income to the government. Consider this: When South Carolina left the Union in 1860, the Federal government had a grand total of only $200,000 in the Treasury. Plus the government had done nothing to prevent the South from industrializing and thus circumventing the tariff by producing its own manufactured goods.
I recommend you read Mark Thornton's book "Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War." I don't know where you're getting your facts about tariff revenues not being the majority source of income for the Federal Gov't in the 1800s (obv a time when the income tax didn't exist). Thomas Woods and others have said it and backed it up numerous times. It's the main reason why the North immediately went to the ports in the beginning of the conflict (obv in addition
@selfrealizedexile I never said tariffs weren't the majority source of Federal income. What I said was they didn't result in money pouring into government coffers at the rate that neo-Confederates would have us believe. The blockading of Southern ports during the war had nothing whatsoever to do with tariff collection. It was strictly to isolate the CSA's military and economic aid from Europe. If you can provide real evidence to the contrary, I'd love to read it.
to the fact that blocking logistics is beneficial in war). Why would the South manufacture its own tools? It was obviously comparatively advantageous to them to import from the British. This was also perfomatively confirmed and implied by the northest tariff coalition having the economic incentive to do so; it wasn't just nationalism--just simply legal plunder. The North knew they'd buy from them if they could tax the British high enough--it's why they did it!
@selfrealizedexile Because there is an obvious advantage to having a diversified economy, as well as being self-sufficient in as many areas as possible. Cotton was the virtual basis of the antebellum Southern economy. What happens if the worldwide demand for cotton plummets? Northern industry demanded tariffs because it was struggling prior to the war due to European competition. Before 1861, US tariffs were the lowest in the industrialized world.
A "diversified economy" is not a conscious choice--it merely is the effect of marginal utility. Isolationism / Protectionism ("self-sufficiency") apodictically must make an economy weaker. If the North struggles (which is laughable as the North's economy was much more advanced than the South's and only firms on the margin get pushed out) against the British in a given industry, that is just an economic signal that workers in the relevant industries need to allocate their time and
@selfrealizedexile It's not laugable when you consider that cotton in 1860 accounted for over half the total US exports as well as the fact that bank runs like the one in 1857 were devastating in the North while the Southern economy was mostly immune to them.
labor to more productive entreprises. Firms and entire industries die all the time to make available the scarce resources for future progress. If you stifle that, you're weaker for it, period. The infant firm argument is one for a 30-year old infant; we find these firms never quite "grow up" or end their appetite for subsidization.
@selfrealizedexile "It's unfettered hyperbole to believe the South would attack the North." Yet that's exactly what happened. I'm amazed by pro-Confederates who behave as if the siezure of Federal mints and arsenals and the attack on Ft. Sumter never happened. What would be our reaction if Fort Bragg was attacked by the North Carolina National Guard? Would the Army Chief of Staff advise the President not to retaliate because the rebels are protected by states' rights and the Constitution?
You know my point. The South had no intention of invading all the way up to New York for example; they could only hope to endure the storm and the North eventually give up.
So, when a different country attacks us, we're obliged to annex them after defeating them? That's a lot of nonsense. Unless you're here today willing to admit the Federal gov't was imperialistic.
@selfrealizedexile Where did I say that defeated countries should be annexed, or that the Confederacy's war aim was to conquer the North? You're obviously skirting my point, which is that Lincoln had every legal and historical precedent to put down an armed rebellion. And if you don't think the US had the right, you can view the war as an exercise in Manifest Destiny, which was strongly supported by the Southern leaders. I don't deny US imperialism. The CSA wished to expand its territory too.
If you argue for what the North did, you must also endorse the annexation of the South after the war. Your argument was if the South attacks Federal property, the Feds must protect it and declare war. Okay, the war's over, does that mean we annex defeated war opponents?
The US Federal gov't did not have the right to end secession. You're willfully ignoring so much literature of the Founding Fathers. Lincoln even said himself (the lying murderer that he was) a state's right to
@selfrealizedexile In this case, yes. The rebels were our countrymen to begin with. This was an internal rebellion, not a war between two different nations. You're taking Lincoln's 1848 speech out of context. He believed in the right of revolution. Secession is not the same thing. If my views contradict some of the Founding Fathers' beliefs, so be it. They weren't any more infallible than we are.
secede was one of the most sacred. Just because someone opposes Northern aggression, it does not logically follow they support the CSA who removed freedom of speech, press, etc. I'm no hypocrite.
Bank runs are healthy for an economy. If fractonal-reserves isn't the exact definition of fraud, I don't know the meaning of the term. I thought you said you were a different kind of historian?
You feel vindicated by the fact that tyranny is more popular than Liberty? What?
another country. Several of the founding fathers would have agreed with the secession and few, if any, states would have ratified the Constitution if they knew down the road that they wouldn't be allowed to secede.
It's true that historians do exist who consider the US Constitution, but my statement is still true. It is a rare group who does so. But, I'm glad you can speak out against collectivist fallacies, if only to support yourself. It is a collectivist fallacy that
Considering I just watched "America: The Story of Us" a few weeks ago wherein all contributors said the New Deal and WWII got us out of the Great Depression, I would say the majority of historians don't know a lick of economics. This was also my experience in a magnet high school and throughout college. Rarely, also, do historians ever question whether something was unconstitutional.
@selfrealizedexile World War II got us out of the Great Depression; the New Deal made the Depression worse! "Rarely do historians ever question whether something was unconstitutional." This is an incredible statement. Historians (reputable ones, not the socialist morons that usually populate colleges and the ignorant ones who teach in high schools) ALWAYS consider the Constitution and its impact on the events of our history. We historians are a varied lot who can't be grouped in one category.
@selfrealizedexile The hundreds of thousands of dead were the result of secession and rebellion led by the wealthy Southern elite who were prepared to watch the last Confederate soldier die before surrendering one iota of their wealth, power, and status. Every nation has a natural right to preserve its territorial integrity. If the South had won, we'd be a collection of weaker, smaller nations like Europe today or like China before WWII.
Both sides in war send the young, poor, and dumb to die in place of the rich elite. It's how it's always been. The point is this particular war was initiated by the North--the majority, if not all, of the conflict occurred in the South. Last I checked, secession =/= invasion. You have to admit the priests of the state were hard at work brainwashing people into believing it was an internal civil war for who led the country (traditionally, what a civil war means).
@selfrealizedexile True, it wasn't a civil war by the traditional definition; no reputable historian is claiming that it was. It was a rebellion instigated by a slaveholding elite for the purpose of eradicating what it viewed as a threat to the plantation system. Read the declarations of secession by the seceding states and you'll find that these men told us exactly why they decided to leave the Union. Tariffs are mentioned only briefly in Georgia's document. The others don't mention it at all.
There's no doubt that slaveholders would desire to maintain their hold. Only a fool would argue otherwise. But, it's just an outright lie to suggest the North invaded the South over slavery. The "social" reasons for the war got pushed too hard by the priests of the state and those near Lincoln didn't begin it until half of the war was over. The North were rabid racists as well, noting employing black soldiers until after they saw the Confederates do so, but still paying them
@selfrealizedexile Of course that would be an outright lie. The North invaded the South to end the rebellion and restore the Union, after US troops had been attacked. You're mistaken about black troops. The Confederate War Department only authorized their use three weeks before Appomattox. A mere handful of them fought for the South prior to this, without the knowledge or support of the CS government.
half the wages of a white soldier. The Confederates on the other hand paid their black soldiers the same as their white soldiers. There are an enormous amount of these little ironies. What kids get taught in high school--that the North were the knights in shining armor, there to restore Liberty--is a crock of shit.
Look, regardless what is written in one document or another (I fully concede slaveholders don't want slavery abolished, but you must also concede Lincoln was willing
@selfrealizedexile White soldiers in the Union Army were paid $13/month. Blacks $10/month. Half??? Black US troops were paid the same as whites beginning in 1864. Confederate general Cleburne had his military career wrecked when he suggested to Davis that blacks be armed and put into the CS army en masse.
My source is the Austrian Scholars' Conference on Southern Secession and Reconstruction. Feel free to look up the lecturers and their books. I'm not interested in history enough to validate everything with original sources, but, rather, timeless disciplines like logic, economics, mathematics, and science. What I know is logically true is the North unjustly aggressed and for different reasons (in their own words). You should concede as much. You're basic point so far has been to
@selfrealizedexile Your source is mistaken. As I've said before, whenever you have non-historians being paid to speak to other non-historians, you can't expect an objective presentation. Your view here is opinion and emotion, not logic. Not having a solid knowledge of the War and then believing everything these people say is like not adjusting your compass for magnetic variation before making a 1000-mile flight. You'll end up WAY off course.
Emotion? Don't insult me. I've used logic appropriately. Forgive me if I find hundreds of thousands murdered to be unwarranted and condemnable. It's exaggeration to suggest disagreeing over the exact wage of a soldier to mean I have no factual anchoring. Don't overstep what benefit I've alloted you.
@selfrealizedexile I had no intention of insulting you personally and I apologize if I did. We're knowledgeable in different areas; your training is in economics and mine is in history. Have you found the declaration of secession documents from GA, SC, MS, and TX? Read them and tell me what the Southern leaders' main reason for secession was, in their own words. You'll find it wasn't the tariff issue. I'll take a look at the book you mentioned earlier.
Look, even if every single Southern citizen said it was about slavery through and through, it was NOT the reason for the Union in their leader's own words. I have no doubt some Confederates thought the North was gonna threaten slavery if only in the long-term, but the tariff's economic impact was significant.
You have to also understand that history is just data. It means little if you can't also process that data. This is why *most* historians are utterly inept and
propagandists. For someone to be "specialized" in an area such as history, it at base means they've covered a lot of material. But, even that is less valuable than someone who's read about only one era but actually knows how to analyze the material. You call the Austrians "non-historians," but you fail to appreciate how valuable the insight is of a true economist's take on history. Without their type, we'd all be memorizing that FDR was God incarnate from the scrolls of his
priests. History is nothing more than indoctrination if one doesn't possess a critical mind. You should spend more time questioning the "social" view of the Civil War which was pushed too far by pro-gov't historians. Lincoln would never have spilled so much blood and treasure over blacks. Never.
@selfrealizedexile I never said the war was a social crusade to end slavery. Emancipation later became a war aim to help ensure that Britain and France would stay out of it. Jumping on the DiLorenzo/Austrian bandwagon while not bothering to learn more about the war betrays the lack of a critical mind. You're analyzing the situation armed only with what this group is telling you. If they told you that blacks were only given half-pay in the Army, what else are they wrong about?
I still think the speaker who said that was correct. Rarely in academia is something an out and out lie, but, rather, a skewed presentation. At worst in my eyes, he was factually right but used one anomalous month's pay. I do spend time reading in-depth history, but I have a lot of priorities (physics, chemistry, mathematics, electronics, computers, nutrition, exercise, and on and on; I must prioritize; it's not that I don't recognize the importance of a "clairvoyant" history)
@selfrealizedexile Unfortunately, this is one case where the speaker was dead wrong. While it wasn't the central part of the speaker's focus, he erred in saying that black Union privates got half the pay of whites. Even if it was based on an anomolous month's pay, it doesn't fit the army's well-documented pay scale, nor does it address the fact that pay was equalized by war's end. I have the usual assortment of priorities myself--doing nothing but reading history will suck the life out of you...
. I will get to reading certain things--I still need to get to WWI and WWII. There is an endless amount of historical data out there someone can analyze (do I read up on how the majority of Americans opposed the Constitution in 1787 or do I read how the Soviets starved the Ukrainians? At what point can someone be said to understand something and move on? Is someone required to know every single soldier's name of a conflict to know why it was fought? Do I need to know the size
of the bullet that entered Linoln's skull to know why it was fired? How do you seperate minutia from meaningful information? History carries with it all possible methods of malfeasant analysis and fallacies. In science or math, you either test it, get it right, or get it wrong. I'm not speaking ill of History within this context, but, instead, pointing out the central importance of being able to property sort the endless sea of data.
@selfrealizedexile Therein lies the rub! The key to history is not facts and dates, it's interpretation of primary sources, which involves reading other primary sources written by the same person(s) versus other contemporary accounts to determine the veracity of what the person is saying. History is a science, but not in the same sense that mathematics and physics are. You're absolutely right, there. It doesn't often deal with absolutes--it's HIS STORY, which as you said must be picked apart.
; I can often read between the lines of history and assess a situation very quickly (FDR suspending the gold clause, US unilaterally ending Bretton-Woods, etc.). History has no other use aside from impressing the masses if it is not an endeavor pursuant of understanding the nature of human society. It will always be repeated (it wouldn't be as meaningful if it wouldn't be), but, I can at least make sense of the chaos as a lone observer and take necessary precautions to maximize
@selfrealizedexile History involves a good bit of reading between the lines. In your example, it's essential to examine the historical environment which pushed FDR to suspend the gold clause, rather than jumping to conclusions as to his reasons without examining everything there is to see. History is quite useful for understanding patterns in events and in human behavior. Redistribution of wealth, harsh postwar policies, they've all been tried and have failed before! History does offer lessons.
If one properly examined the historical environment of FDR with an understanding of catallactics, they'd conclude that central planning must fail and the only way out that wouldn't exacerbate the malinvestment was further Liberty (abolish Fed, fractional-reserves, privatize money, etc.).
personal utility and, possible, dodge a bullet (America has been grinding down the road towards violent collapse and further tyranny for decades; when the time comes, I'll know it just as Mises knew about Hitler; I'm already planning on learning Chinese (not China, but Hong Kong / Singapore / NZ / Australia) before I graduate with my degrees.
Tell me, after years of investment, who can be said to have benefited more from an (applicable) knowledge of history, the man who is a huge
Civil War buff (down to every tactical maneuver, although I once learned them my brain found better use of that memory space) who gets swept up into the coming USD collapse and further tyrannical consolidation or the guy who stayed honest to reality, vigilant, and expatriates a decade before it happens?
@selfrealizedexile I agree completely. The student of the Civil War who is a "regiment numbers and positions" man usually has little understanding of the war as a whole. Tell him about the reasons for wartime inflation in the North and he looks at you with a 'deer in the headlights" expression. Expatriating right now might not be such a bad idea! The USD seems well on the way to collapse; the powers that be didn't learn from the CSA experiment of printing the hell out of unbacked fiat money!
Expatriation right now isn't quite the apex moment. America has been significantly gutting its productive capacity since the '70s. It's capital consumption has significantly constrained future growth; we haven't quite reached the point where standard of living is going down quickly as we consume the means of producing even consumer goods and the structure of production regresses, but the consumption-production pattern implies it's eventual realization.
As Murray Rothbard said, "Capitalism is the fullest expression of Anarchism, and Anarchism is the fullest expression of Capitalism." One must fully reject the state before they fully understand economics. Over time as you expose yourself to more sound economics (not mercantilist Keynesianism which posits there is such an irrational thing as pointless 'underconsumption', i.e. savings which enables lengthening the structure of production for more future consumption, which must be
have its capital coercively-stolen to fund pet theory manipulations, if not outright parasitic corruption. But, this experiment must always end the same way in our rational universe of cause and effect.), you will that much more clearly grasp history (i.e. the nature of human society which really is alternatively the definition of economics; when one finally understands economics, it coincides with all political realities as Nature's true gov't--all nation-states are short-term
, violent abominations in the eyes of God. Liberty is Justice; if you stand in the way of it, God's designed system will make it such that the very means of manipulating it to carry with it its own destructive end (i.e. "Sic temper tyrannis!" Thus always to tyrants.). Only Liberty is sustainable.
What do you make of historians like Pat Buchanan himself and his books including "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War"? That's one of the books I was intending on reading to get a more realistic, in-depth view of the politics of WWII (I've already read plenty on the military history of the U.S. Army). History is never arbitrary as it is presented in simplistic high school (sometimes even college courses) where things were they way they were and you just memorize it (e.g.
@selfrealizedexile Pat Buchanan is not an historian in the true sense; he's an ideologist. I'm looking forward to reading this book. From what I've gathered so far, Buchanan is right in saying that Britain made a costly blunder in committing to war for Poland's sake--they were physically unable to defend Poland in the first place. He's right in saying that the Treaty of Versailles only made the rise of Hitler certain and that Britain should have stopped Hitler sooner. But these are all (cont)
@galoon points that historians have already noted. He misses the mark in saying that the Holocaust was a symptom of the war and thus the fault of the Western powers for not avoiding this war. The Holocaust was actually one of the main tenets of Hitler's brand of leadership. It was already set in motion by 1934. Buchanan's premise is that Hitler would not have targeted Britain and America if he was allowed to run free in central and eastern Europe and that although his empire would have (cont)
@galoon been horrible to live under, it would have eventually dissipated, especially after Hitler died. The problem with this is that Hitler had already shown that he could not be trusted and that no amount of territory could satiate his appetite for conquest. There's not enough room here to really get into a discussion of the reviews of this book, both pro and con. You of course can read some great reviews of this book (positive and negative) at Amazon.com. I would say it has both good (cont)
@galoon and bad points, as far as historical interpretation goes. Since it's a hypothetical scenario (the two Wars having never happened) it's not a cut and dried affair either way, but its main defect as an historical work stems from the fact that only secondary sources were used in its construction--in other words, it was created using works flavored by the bias of other historians. Still, many of Buchanan's points are valid. More later after I've had a chance to actually read it!
Nazi Germany allied with Japan. The modern student goes "okay, memorize that piece of information for the test," but they don't go "hmm, why Japan; what was Germany's motive and eventual agenda?") Actors in history often have agendas and plans and the value of history is made invisible if one doesn't make deep connections between each piece of information.
@selfrealizedexile You're absolutely right. History is generally poorly taught at both the high school and college levels. I was fortunate to have some good history professors in college who were the real thing; not just some lackeys out to turn us into socialists (and there were some of those too!) A knowledgeable interpretation is the key to good history; the events and dates themselves are empty without it. The military and political reasons behind the Tripartite Pact between Germany (cont)
@galoon and Japan (economics had less to do with it) must be demanded of the student to uncover and understand; otherwise the fact of its existence has no value other than regurgitating it on the exam. I agree with you completely on liberty and capitalism; they're definitely the way to go and our current government in 2010 is destructive to both. I want to learn more about economics; I concur with you that under-covered banks such as those that caused the bank runs prior to the (cont)
@galoon Federal Reserve Act are fraud. What exactly did you mean when you said that bank runs are good for an economy? Did you mean that they punish banks for maintaining less capital/assets than the total of their clients deposits, discouraging them from this practice in the future?
Yes, banks were originally currency warehouses which charged fees for holding clients' gold and silver. A bank run is impossible with 100% reserves. Investing / loaning agencies are the ones who can spend clients' money, but the client signs a contract that he can't always immediately get his money back. Fractional-reserves is literally a substantial rich tax on the poor and middle class as the extra credit extracted from specie-holders (prior to FDR seizing most of everyone's
gold) amounts to a diminishing of purchasing power from the honest capital-earners to the banks. This is also what is meant when someone says we have a debt-based money system. Banks used to serve useful functions when they would merely trade titles of gold and silver at the request of a client (clients wouldn't actually carry with them a sack of gold to buy something expensive)--they''d use bank notes (really the same thing as a check today).
seeks to do is control the money supply. Prior to its inception and further unification into gold and silver (it's been many other things throughout history as you might know), gov'ts were simply nomadic bandits which physically pillaged its proceeds. Before the US gov't nationalized their money, their were actually private coining institutions. The Dollar gets its name from a very prestigious and well-respected spanish coiner (i.e. the market rewarded him by using a lot of his
coins because he didn't clip, shave, or defraud them of its contents; this one of many examples of how a market can provide services much of the establishment doesn't think is possible--law, security, etc.). The $ symbol itself comes from silver pesos.
It is quite an incredible thing, though, how the intellectuals (priests of the state) wrote history such that bank runs were considered unexplainable phenomena which were eventually solved by the gov't cartelization credit-expansio
n. The true story (and I can give you a number of great videos by Murray Rothbard on it) is bank runs kept fraud at least somewhat at bay. The monopolizers didn't like this and found that private trusts inevitably always had rate-busters so they eventually lobbied gov't for a monopoly by decree (the Federal Reserve) which could expand credit of all banks at the same time so that clients would have no where to run their money to.
What's interesting about bank runs as well is they
also minimized credit bubbles (boom bust cycles). When a bank expands credit, that deceives the market temporarily that there is an increase in purchasing power and, thus, investment increases (savings doesn't). This changes the spending pattern of consumers. The best way to explain it is how Mises compared it to a builder of a house who has a stack of bricks. As any rational builder would, he will design his house based on how many bricks he has (how big the foundation will be
along with the other parts in a proportion he desires). Well, if he thinks he has more bricks than he actually has (i.e the market thinks it has more savings, i.e. real loanable funds, with which to invest than it actually does), he's going to build a very large foundation and when he's getting close to the roof, he's going to realize he's already out of bricks. This is the bust. The unfinished house is devalued (prices crash / stock market crashes--prices are nothing more than
valuations of property; you do not want to artifically stop the market's process of realizing what mispriced assets are really worth (trying to keep housing prices up by artificially stimulating demand, which steals even more capital out of the market that could have been used to replenish the previously wasted capital during the "boom"). If the market is free to evaluate assets truly, it can rationally grow the economy without violent fluctuations.
deconstruct the house and rebuild it in proper proportion (costing time which is equivalent to the wasted savings that was malinvested). This is known as the recession. The market corrects inflated prices (few people ever look at stock market crashes as healthy aside from the Austrians) and companies go bankrupt as their expenditures outweigh their overvalued assets which have now crashed (often this has chain effects as companies which owned bankrupt companies then go bankrupt).
But, this mispricing of assets didn't occur in a vacuum; the market was temporarily deceived by the credit expansion and, thus, allocated real savings into investments it made on the margin (malinvestments--eventually, in a pure economy, nothing is a malinvestment; the quality of being a malinvestment is merely its mistiming). Thus, the market's loan market is now poorer during the bust then before the boom (no different than how any individual actor would be poorer if he changed
his consuming habits because he misread his lottery ticket). The market through its natural productive growth mechanism will replenish the savings, but much quicker if interest rates are private (and, thus, savings is greatly incentivized with a higher yield rate).
So bank runs can keep this kind of credit cycle much smaller than if all banks expand credit at the same time.
@selfrealizedexile Now that is very interesting. That is the first good explanation I've read which explains why the Federal Reserve is harmful. It's ironic that the biggest supporters of the Federal Reserve Act prior to its ratification were the poorer people hailing from the poorest states. They ended up being the ones who suffered most from it during recessions.
While that dynamic is common (the poor begging for socialized healthcare are the first to suffer once it causes further shortages as the gov't artificially keeps prices down and misallocates resources in its management), the biggest proponents of the Federal Reserve in terms of actual time investment and lobbying was the big banks and the Rockefellers and Morgans. I suppose one might say the same thing about the drug companies and health insurance companies lobbying for a mandate.
@selfrealizedexile From what you've said here, it seems that the Federal Reserve exacerbated the situation that had occured during bank runs. While boom/bust cycles occured during the Free Banking Era when banks printed (often overprinted) their own banknotes, they were magnified after the Federal Reserve Act was passed by the practice of universal credit expansion by all banks at the same time. And unlike in bank runs, clients have no means of checking this credit expansion; no means of
Technically, it wasn't a free banking era--just a freer banking era. There were still state laws and the gov't did, infact, control the money supply (it's even in the U.S. Constitution; I fully believe that the economy would have been even more prosperous throughout the 1800s if it were the Articles of Confederation instead, though I full concede that the natural growth of gov't and tyranny would have come still, perhaps through outright war).
a way to check it somewhat, although it's ofc not optimal--they can hold a foreign currency or exchange it for commodities, either one is not optimal in the long-term as they're merely havens and offer no growth (it's kind of like how people who hold gold think they're getting richer, but what's really happening is they just are not that much POORER for staying in dollars. Their purchasing power in the long-run really didn't change. It's only through increased production that
that individuals become wealthier as their purchasing power increases (because there are more goods on the market with which to exchange, increased Quantity decreases Price as marginal utility decreases, etc.).
Yeah, the gov't will keep the price of wood low because it's a 'moral / social crime' that he can't have it simply because he wants it. Well, this will have greater rammifications on the supply of wood than the Katrina victims possibly not having it allocated to them.
Picture a shortage of oil because the gov't kept prices artificially low (and, thus, profit motive was low). Well, what's the quicker way out of the shortage, gov't creating artificial incentives to produce oil or simply letting the price of oil fluctuate where it wants to go (i.e. not setting interest rates through the Federal Reserve)? In a very poor loan market, interest rates will be VERY high. Savers will flood the market and most borrowers will run away (economize its use)
It's like how the price of wood will go up around the country after a natural disaster where homes were destroyed. There's only so much cut wood out there at any given time. What the market is doing is rationally governing the who needs the scarce wood the most (the guy building a dog house or the displaced homeowners of Katrina?). High prices means the dog house builder defers consumption and this allows only those who need it the most to have that resource available on demand.
@selfrealizedexile And that's exactly how our government today would screw things up by interfering i.e. by mandating that the man building the doghouse would be given the wood at a much lower price than what the market would naturally set? We're seeing that happen, also.
--their would be uneconomized usage of wood. This is what happened to the loan markets. With artificially low interest rates (this happens with student loans and college tuition, too, btw), you had uneconomized borrowing (over-leveraging--boy did we hear that word a lot on the news over the past two years) which consumed our real supply of loans quickly. This is what I meant by "capital consumption" earlier when I was discussing how the US has been gutting its productive capacity
But, as I was saying earlier, we live in a rational universe made by a designer who made sure it would auto-correct itself (good tends to triumph over evil eventually, etc.). The greedy criminals and Keynesians thought they could temporarily deceive themselves (and reality) with enough mental gymnastics and psuedo-science and statistical over-aggregation.
The fundamental mechanisms inside Nature never change, they wouldn't be fundamental if they did. So, the Fed's time will come
So, let's apply this to today. There's a massive credit crunch (i.e. shortage). This means businesses can't get loans because the banks have a VERY limited amount and they can't get much interest on them (in a market where the Fed has nationalized it) anyways, not to mention many of them have bad assets and, thus, might need their loanable assets as collateral for the future. This makes for a very disrupted, poor system. But, there is a way out. Free up the interest rate and the
businesses will be able to start getting more loans (interest will be high at first, but, as supply of loanable funds increases, the interest will come back down and regular businesses will be able to afford to borrow, too).
I realize that's a lot of text to flood you with, but that's just the way economics is.
@selfrealizedexile Don't worry about the long text--I'm following you. Some of what my macroeconomics prof told us back in 1993 is starting to come back to me now! It's making more sense to me now than it did then...
do so, but you carry with you the simplified view that an oligarchic rule is just and efficient. One day, if you do the reading and necessary reflection, you'll realize gov't is nothing more than a mafia and, with that, your views will radically change on a number of topics, the American Civil War being one of them.
@selfrealizedexile I have no illusions about the corruption of our government, believe me. But the fact is that a local government is no less fallible than a central one. I don't see how I can be labeled as a brainwashed believer in big government simply because I support the Union's cause.
to keep their slavery so long as it didn't expand out west, for racist reasons if you can believe it, and if he could keep his power over them), the economics of the tariff obliterated the southern economy. Just read Calhoun's work on it. The South Carolina movement was what lead to the first english translations of the great free market work the French (Baptiste, Say) had done.
Why should someone have to surrender their property to a gov't?
As an Anarcho-Capitalist, I simply disagree that a gov't has the right to maintain its "territorial integrity." But, even taking you on in a modern, popular context, I think your argument still falls flat. How does "integrity" function in an increasingly globalized society? Nations merging is the future. What if one doesn't want to? What if Texas tomorrow says it wants to maintain its "territorial integrity"
@selfrealizedexile By the same token, what if Virginia decided in January 1864 that it wanted to secede from the Confederacy and make a separate peace with the North? The Confederacy loses the Tredegar Iron Works, the Richmond Depot, and over 20% of its railroad mileage at the time it needs them the most.
If you're a huge history buff, you must be aware of the second section of the US that was considering secession as well after witnessing the tyranny of the Federal gov't and what it could potentially lead to. I can't remember what states exactly--perhaps near Illinois. This was one of the factors that hastened Lincoln.
As an Anarcho-Capitalist, you should already know my answer. I believe every individual should be able to secede from everything.
@selfrealizedexile While I disagree with your philosophy here, I respect your right to your views. I'm well aware that secession was considered several times by Northern states. I feel my position is vindicated by the fact that confederacies in which states' rights are supreme to central power are the least common form of gov't. in the world. I don't, however, believe that individual states should have no sovereignty. There should be a healthy balance between central and state power.
from the Federal Gov't or the eventual North American Union?
Europe isn't "weak" because they're divided into various countries (which isn't exactly true anymore). It's weak because of past economic policies. Also, by weak if you're meaning military might, it's a little bit more complicated with NATO and how we've subsidized their protection (gov't contractors happily helping themselves to more taxpayer funds). What makes a country strong or weak is how free its economy is.
As far as WWII getting us out of the Great Depression, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on Keynesian economics as I don't feel like criticizing Keynes' General Theory, mercantilist econ, misinterpretations of Say's Law, cartelization of the interest rate, over-aggregating the interrelations within the structure of production, or the general fallacy that constructing bombs somehow makes you wealthier for the 200th time on YT.
@selfrealizedexile You must remember that TV programs are mainly intended as entertainment--the shows' producers tend to select historians based on how they want to present the show, while often ignoring historians who contradict what they believe; TV producers aren't terribly knowledgeable of history! Same goes for college professors; about half of my history professors were more interested in making me a liberal than in educating me. I ended up learning my subject area pretty much on my own.
analysis has lead me to be greatly disgusted with "honest" Abe. I'll finish the videos after I finish the 2-3 audiobooks I'm working on of Mises and Rothbard.
From my own experience, most of the people who defend Lincoln or the North's subjugation of the South unwittingly support a strong central and tyrannical gov't. I don't support slavery; it would have been much more preferable to have instead the slaves eventually resist their oppressors imo. Just as we shouldn't exercise an
You keep mistaking me for being a support of the South in its entirety; my opposition to slavery should be enough to warrant that; I merely was opposing the North subjugating a seceding entity.
The railroad was definitely not a "brilliant" act of gov't intervention. Study the economic history of railroad subsidization and the ICC.
k, I think you easily auto-defaulted this debate based on your 15 year old maturity.
interventionist's foreign policy in the Middle East or elsewhere but instead should rely on the native population's natural desire for freedom. The unintended consequences of interventionism are too great; often the freedom fighters confuse you for the enemy, attack you, and are possibly brainwashed by their actual oppressors that you are the great evil and direct their ire of decades of oppression on you instead.
The constitution isnt silent on secession and Thomas Jefferson was pretty vocal about states rights the 10th amendment suggest this as well. Lincoln was about preserving the union with or without slavery. Slavery was a huge economic mechanism of the south, it was about money/states rights amongst other factors. Under the bill of rights,the feds can come in and protect someones individual liberty. I personally think slavery was used to justify unconstitutional acts of big govt
>In a nutshell, slavery caused secession, and secession caused the war.
Put another way:
What if I show up tomorrow at your house with a bat, and say "IF YOU LEAVE YOUR HOUSE, I'm GONNA WHACK YOU!" if you leave your house, and I hit you, that doesn't make it your fault. I had no right to create such a rule, nor to enforce it.
Yet this is essentially your argument for the war of northern aggression. Not to mention that even if it were "illegal", you legally can't enforce laws with the military.
See Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution. It gives the government the power to put down insurrections. As for "northern aggression", it's hard to claim that was the case when the Confederates fired on US troops at Fort Sumter, which was situated on ground that was ceded to the Federal government by South Carolina. This was after the rebs seized Federal arsenels, in some cases before their states actually seceded. So what we have is illegal seizure of a Federal installation by South Carolina.
> Fort Sumter, which was situated on ground that was ceded to the Federal government by South Carolina
That land was ceded when SC was still a part of the union. After they left, that deal was implicitly over. Regardless, the federal government cannot own land in other countries, unless it is with permission from that country. Should that country decide it wishes to reclaim that land, that is NOT GROUNDS FOR $#@!KING WAR
By that logic, we had no right to occupy our sector of Nazi Germany after World War II. And the fort was still U.S. property. Firing on a U.S. installation and U.S. troops anywhere is grounds for war. If your example is correct, we had no right to base troops in Afghanistan after 9/11.
>Firing on a U.S. installation and U.S. troops anywhere is grounds for war.
So if we paradrop troops into Iran, they refuse to leave, and they manage to get themselves shot by Iranian soldiers, Iran is the aggressor? Explain that to me.
I've listened to the video, but am also familiar with the primary sources on the War. Any time you have a person like DiLorenzo who is being paid to present his "research" to groups of non-historians, you can be pretty sure you're not getting real history. He takes Lincoln's speeches out of context, often distorting them to conform to his views, and presents only those sources that support his theory.
> He takes Lincoln's speeches out of context, often distorting them to conform to his views, and presents only those sources that support his theory.
Example?
See I don't think you've actually read the source material at all. Why don't you see lincoln's first inaugural address where he says he wouldn't mind legalizing slavery BY CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
Here's an example. In "The Real Lincoln", he quotes Lincoln as saying " eliminating every last black person from American soil would be a glorious consummation. What Lincoln actually said was "If as the friends of colonization hope, the present & coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means, succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery; and,at the same time,in restoring a captive people to their long-lost father-land,with bright prospects for the future; (cont.)
(con't) "and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation." That should tide you over for the meantime. I'll get back to you on the first inauguaral address, because this guy twists it beyond belief.
1) He could've said both that quote (from henry clay's eulogy) and another one, both featuring the words "glorious consummation"
2) It's moot, because it's well known lincoln was for the deportation of all black people, regardless if this quote was exactly correct
3) Name another quote. Since you say you've read all the "original sources", and you suggest dilorenzo does this 'all the time', this should be easy, right?
2)You have yet to offer any evidence at all to refute anything I've said here or to support the claims you've made. I'm not the one making the ridiculous claim that the War was only about tariffs; you are--therefore the burden of proof is on you, not me. Got anything besides DiLorenzo or the Kennedy brothers?
3)Lincoln did indeed favor deportation, as you call it. It doesn't change the fact that DiLorenzo has obviously distorted the quote.
Okay, you want to be refuted: you said the morill tariff was passed a year AFTER SC seceded, when it passed the house on May 10, 1860 (SC seceded in DECEMBER 1860).
You were wrong about this point. The "tariff of abominations" was passed prior to secession.
Like all wars, I think this one had multiple causes. DiLorenzo states tariffs were probably the biggest cause of secession in this case. He makes a valid argument.
Saying it's over slavery is far more ridiculous, IMO
@3:23,
The "seceding" South was trying to invade Kansas, Missouri, Arizona, East Tennessee, and West Virginia.
TheFlanker35 2 weeks ago
Lincoln's public utterances concerning slaves are troubling. As a lawyer he represented slave-owners in support of the Fugitive Slave Act. Lincoln's steadfast dedication to keeping Illinois a "free" state meant that there would be no Negro slavery is Illinois because Negroes would not be allowed to settle in Illinois. Illinois would be a free state: a Negro-free state.
FinallyTheNight 6 months ago
What did Jefferson Davis say the "intolerable grievance" was?
He said it was NOT the tariff. He said it was the North talking badly -- "denoucing" the spread of slavery to the new states (territories).
Let me repeat that - your own president specifcially said it was NOT the tariffs. In his own book. He claims instead it was the North (Lincoln's) denounciation of spreading slavery to the territories.
Yes -- the Civil War really was about the spread of slavery after all.
SteamboatPolar 1 year ago
Acutally Jefferson Davis said emphatically it was NOT tariffs. Got that? He said secession was NOT about tariffs.
The rise and fall of the Confederate government, Volume 1 . Go read it.
He said it was NOT the tariff. Let me repeat that - Jefferson Davis said it was NOT the tariff was the grievance.
Read his own book --
SteamboatPolar 1 year ago
NB get over your hatred of me (and the truth), Once again you've spoken and once again you've been (rightfully so) deleted..
BigOrangeTitan 2 years ago
LOL! Guess the truth hurts doesn't ir NB? Here's another tidbit for you to go ballistic over. Mary Todd Lincon's family owned slaves.
BigOrangeTitan 2 years ago
slavery was practiced in pro Union states so your arguement is pretty pointless.
BigOrangeTitan 2 years ago
They just hated the thought of Blacks being free. I guess that's why they said in the C.S.A. constitution that if any slave escaped from one confederate state to another he was a free man. This was designed to gradually end slavery.
BigOrangeTitan 2 years ago
This guy should stick to economics and leave history to historians. Tariffs are scarcely mentioned by the southern leaders in their declarations of secession. If the North was trying to rip the South off, how does he explain why the Morrill Tariff was passed a year after the south left the Union? The south promptly instituted its own tariff after secession. European nations had plenty of money to buy both southern cotton and northern grain. And the southern planters made a killing on cotton.
galoon 2 years ago
The Morrill Tariff was passed in the 1859-60 congress, obviously well before secession (it didn't take effect until 1861 but it wasn't like Lincoln was going to veto it after he made protectionism the keystone of his campaign). Also Davis and Lincoln prominently mentioned protectionism in their inaugural addresses. Lincoln was willing to ensure slavery in the South but threatened military force if tariffs weren't enforced.
BabaRamDass 2 years ago 4
The Morrill Tariff passed the Senate in March 1861 (I was mistaken about it being '62!) Lincoln didn't threaten military force for nonpayment of tariff duties. He stated that he would defend Federal installations & property, and expressly stated that there would be no military force unless it was provoked, which turned out to be the case.
galoon 2 years ago
Link? It's been awhile since i took US history but i'm pretty sure it was passed in early 1860. It might have been passed by the House but stalled in the Senate, but i don't think it could have been defeated given Republican success in 1860. Also Lincoln definitely mentioned collecting duties in his inaugural address but said he wouldn't interfere with slavery. As for being provoked, SC even offered to buy the remaining government properties.
BabaRamDass 2 years ago
South: Hey fort sumter, you're on our land and you represent a foreign military force. Please leave.
Sumter: While technically correct, we're under orders to do tell you to go f' yourselves.
*war*
Lincoln: [mr burns voice] exxxxcelent
latewire 2 years ago
>Tariffs are scarcely mentioned by the southern leaders in their declarations of secession.
They were mentioned by lincoln, at length. The south didn't want to go to war, the North did. Therefore, all that matters is what the north was fighting for.
Regardless, at the very least, tariffs are far more at fault than slavery--which is commonly thought of as the main reason for the "civil war."
latewire 2 years ago
If the North wanted to go to war, why was Major Anderson at Fort Sumter under orders to do nothing to provoke a war? If they wanted war, they'd have fired on the Confederates on Morris Island as soon as they opened up on the Star of the West. If tariffs were the central issue, the secessionist leaders would have said so in their justifications for secession. South Carolina's document doesn't even mention tariffs. In a nutshell, slavery caused secession, and secession caused the war.
galoon 2 years ago
> In a nutshell, slavery caused secession, and secession caused the war.
How? Secession wasn't illegal. The south was a legal, sovereign nation. What caused the war was Lincoln's want for a war. All the south wanted was independence.
This was Lincoln's description of the war: 1) south is not a real country 2) since they are not a real country, they are part of the US and therefore have to pay US taxes 3) they are not paying US taxes 4) we must enforce the tax
latewire 2 years ago
Secession wasn't legal or illegal. The Constitution is silent on it. And if the Constitution was nothing more than a treaty between states; where any state could leave any time it felt like it, why even bother drafting a constitution? What's the point of a union if this was the case? The only way the Union could be legally dissolved is if 2/3 of the states concur. That wasn't the case here.
galoon 2 years ago
galoon,
A contract is something you can voluntarily join. If one of the sides doesn't hold up to his end, then you have the right to leave it. That is precisely what happened: the Northern states were levying unconstitutional taxes, so the Southern states seceded.
Nielsio 2 years ago
Nope. Tariffs are and were perfectly legal. The real issue was the North's growing population--hence its growing power in the previously Southern-dominated government. The South wanted to institutionalize slavery nationally and wanted the government and the people to support and protect it wherever they chose to take it. When they were told this wasn't possible, the South broke the contract by leaving the government which had shielded its "institution" for so long instead of working within it.
galoon 2 years ago
> The South wanted to institutionalize slavery nationally
So did lincoln, read his first inaugural address; or just the wikipedia summary
You keep on talking about how this was all about slavery. Why don't you READ the emancipation proclamation and all the exceptions it made. The north had slavery in some states (jersey) even after the war was over.
latewire 2 years ago
Nope. Lincoln said in this speech that he didn't intend to interfere with slavery where it existed. Slavery was already institutionalized in the South. I've read the EP. It freed only those slaves in areas under rebel control. The EP has no bearing on the fact that fears over the future of slavery led the South to secede.
galoon 2 years ago
galoon no kidding genius - since EP came AFTER the war started. Where do they find brilliant like yours?
What did Davis do when he read the EP? He threatened to exterminate the slaves. Several times. We dont hear about this now - but several Southern leaders, including Davis -- talked about "extermination" of the slaves --one Southern leaders said they would have to kill all the slaves rather than free them.
The South were Nazi fucks, we have covered up their insanity too long.
NavyBeer 2 years ago
But... but, if Davis exterminated the slaves he would've destroyed the Southern economy. I put this myth up there with "Lee wanted to send the slaves back to Africa. " It was Lincoln, not Lee for the same reason I mentioned before.
BigOrangeTitan 2 years ago
@NavyBeer
I don't support slavery, but it would be irrational for a farmer to kill his livestock.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
self -- it was very rational to whip 5 slaves so 100 would not run away.
Also -- allowing 5 to run away, and not catching them - meant another 5 would run away. That's why Lee and the South would spend MORE to catch a slave than he was worth. To whip him in view of the other slaves was the only way to make slavery sustainable.
Also, southern states actually reimbursed owners if their slaves were executed.
You have a lot to learn about the South
SteamboatPolar 1 year ago
Okay, but you're not addressing the actual point and that is no rational individual is going to remove entirely his ability to earn income from something he knows he can earn income from. You implicitly agreed with the principle yourself by your statement that a slaveowner will sacrifice a few slaves in order to keep the majority in attendance. The initial point remains...
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
Your initial point is full of shit, Of course slave owners would whip their slaves - otherwise, they would have no slaves. Slavery was based on terror.
What part of this dont you grasp? If you executed a slave--- you actually got paid for it. Wrap your head around that.
I will send you something.
NeilTaxCon 1 year ago
Once again, you're either willfully ignoring the dynamic taking place or cannot comprehend that a slave is an individual who performs manual labor for a master. The master views this labor as valuable o/w, if he is not to be defined solely as a sadist, he would not enslave; whipping is NOT destruction of your CAPITAL.
I could extend this point further to what the gov't does to taxpayers as a corollary, but I do not want to hijack the current topic selfishly.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
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"The master views this labor as valuable o/w, if he is not to be defined solely as a sadist, he would not enslave; whipping is NOT destruction of your CAPITAL."
But execution of offending slaves would be, and this certainly took place for the same purpose as whipping them.
They key point being illustrated is the notion of making an example of one to send a message to the many -- follow this one's lead and you will suffer his end.
For a slaver, that is cost management, and quite rational.
Lodatzor 1 year ago
I do have a lot more to learn about southern secession and I will gladly endeavor so, but your pretentious handle on what the civil war was 100% about is weak. You mean to tell me the sole reason why several states seceded was due to a reason given by a single man (Davis, who many southern apologists claim to have been incompetent and a poor choice, but I'll reserve judgement until I can personally conclude that) who was elected after the fact?
You seem to be oversimplifying greatly.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
No not just Davis-- I only have 500 spaces.
Toombs said it - -Yancey said it -- Stephens said it -- the official Declarations of Secession said it. Have you read the Southern offical Declarations of Cuases? The Cornerstone speech?
Have you read the addresses to the secession conventions?
Did you read the history books written BY the South right after the war?
If not -- they are very interesting and a far cry from what you hear now.
NeilTaxCon 1 year ago
Okay, let's take this path further; I find it interesting and potentially productive for at least myself.
What of the tariffs imposed? Were they "just" or even constitutional? Was it constitutional for the North to subdue the South and force them back into fellowship? Is it not a contradiction to the Revolutionary War; we did afterall SECEDE from the British Empire with the Declaration of Independence. The United *STATES* afterall was seen as a VOLUNTARY union of seperate states.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
The tariff you dumb fuck?
The tariff was on ENGLISH goods -- and Davis himself said it was NOT the cause of secession.
Got that? The Morril tarrif you dumb fuck was passed AFTER 7 southern states seceded.
NeilTaxCon 1 year ago
What of the individual accusations made that Lincoln repeatedly violated the constitution? What of the railroad lobbyism? The matter at hand has been dealt with more by historical enthusiasts on the factual basis of certain information, but I would like instead the matter to be put within a context of Constitutional Law and Tyranny. I would like these issues addressed fairly.
I haven't finished watching the multiple videos DiLorenzo has made on Lincoln, but my own viewing of Rothbard's
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
Railroad loobby-- so the fuck what? The transcontiental railroad was one of the most brilliant and helpful things in US history dumb fuck.
NeilTaxCon 1 year ago
Tyranny? are you fucking nuts?
So the slave rapers -- those who bought and sold children, those who stopped freedom of speech, freedom of press for decades in the South, who stopped real elections and the exchange of ideas -- and who said God wanted them to enslave milions -- they were the liberty party?
ANd the guy that stopped those fucks -- who wouldnt let them spread slavery -- he was the bad guy?
You are a fucking idiot.
NeilTaxCon 1 year ago
Tu quoque fallacy.
You must be a disciple of said Lincoln church.
Carry on.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
He won't be carrying on; he's now blocked.
Nielsio 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile
galoon 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile What do you mean by "Lincoln church?"
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
The state religion that exists today is what I mean by it. Statist historians dominate the literature and they always abide by hagiography of men who grew the state the most (Lincoln, FDR, etc.). There's a correlation between how exalted the statesman is and, again, how much he grew gov't. People like Harding and Cleveland are naturally ignored.
You have to remember most historians don't know a lick of economics or law; they simply push rationalizations as priests of the state.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile I agree with you on FDR. By foisting Social Security on us and taking income tax directly from our paychecks, he furthered our course down the road to big government. Ironically, the President who grew the state the most was Woodrow Wilson, a Southerner from Virginia! The permanent income tax that he supported and signed into law started us down that road. Over half of those with history degrees end up as lawyers and this economist (DiLorenzo)knows little of history!
galoon 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile "Priests of the state"--this sounds like something O'Reilly or Hannity would say (and I agree with them most of the time!) What DiLorenzo did in this book was basically take Lincoln out of the historical environment in which he operated. Congress's attempts at compromise on territorial expansion with regard to slavery are marginalized in his work, yet they were the arena in which the hostility between North and South manifested itself and made disunion and war a reality.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
Priests of the state originated with Murray Rothbard when he was discussing the symbiotic relationship between intellectuals the market does not desire (priests, liberal arts professors, writers, etc.) and the state, the former espousing rationalizations for the state's 'justified' existence. I'm not certain if he was the first, but he was probably the most popular. Rothbard was light years ahead of O'Reilly or Hannity who are neocon establishment figures.
Long story short, the
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
War of Northern Aggression was not about ending slavery or racism in the South, but, rather, maintaining the Federal gov't's power over more territory and money as is most history about. This isn't an apologist for racism or slavery telling you this, but, rather, a realist.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile The North's primary goal was putting down the rebellion and preserving the Union. The destruction of slavery was one of the consequences of the war. Why do you believe the war was about increasing government power and control over territory and money? When Ft. Sumter was attacked by the rebels, what choice did Lincoln have when the Northern people demanded he stand up to the South with more determination than Buchanan had showed?
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
Preserving the Union was only valuable to a gov't because it preserved a higher level of power through tariff revenues. You must see that. "Destruction' of southern slavery didn't really occur quickly and it entailed an incredibly brutal exit route that didn't have to be so--several thousand lynchings, racist unions, laws, etc.
It's unfettered hyperbole to believe the South would attack the North. I'm no pro-southern Confederate gov't, but the North was not just in subduing
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile Prior to the Civil War, the tariff provided very little income to the government. Consider this: When South Carolina left the Union in 1860, the Federal government had a grand total of only $200,000 in the Treasury. Plus the government had done nothing to prevent the South from industrializing and thus circumventing the tariff by producing its own manufactured goods.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
I recommend you read Mark Thornton's book "Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War." I don't know where you're getting your facts about tariff revenues not being the majority source of income for the Federal Gov't in the 1800s (obv a time when the income tax didn't exist). Thomas Woods and others have said it and backed it up numerous times. It's the main reason why the North immediately went to the ports in the beginning of the conflict (obv in addition
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile I never said tariffs weren't the majority source of Federal income. What I said was they didn't result in money pouring into government coffers at the rate that neo-Confederates would have us believe. The blockading of Southern ports during the war had nothing whatsoever to do with tariff collection. It was strictly to isolate the CSA's military and economic aid from Europe. If you can provide real evidence to the contrary, I'd love to read it.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon That should read "isolate the CSA from military and economic aid from Europe"
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
to the fact that blocking logistics is beneficial in war). Why would the South manufacture its own tools? It was obviously comparatively advantageous to them to import from the British. This was also perfomatively confirmed and implied by the northest tariff coalition having the economic incentive to do so; it wasn't just nationalism--just simply legal plunder. The North knew they'd buy from them if they could tax the British high enough--it's why they did it!
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile Because there is an obvious advantage to having a diversified economy, as well as being self-sufficient in as many areas as possible. Cotton was the virtual basis of the antebellum Southern economy. What happens if the worldwide demand for cotton plummets? Northern industry demanded tariffs because it was struggling prior to the war due to European competition. Before 1861, US tariffs were the lowest in the industrialized world.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
A "diversified economy" is not a conscious choice--it merely is the effect of marginal utility. Isolationism / Protectionism ("self-sufficiency") apodictically must make an economy weaker. If the North struggles (which is laughable as the North's economy was much more advanced than the South's and only firms on the margin get pushed out) against the British in a given industry, that is just an economic signal that workers in the relevant industries need to allocate their time and
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile It's not laugable when you consider that cotton in 1860 accounted for over half the total US exports as well as the fact that bank runs like the one in 1857 were devastating in the North while the Southern economy was mostly immune to them.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
labor to more productive entreprises. Firms and entire industries die all the time to make available the scarce resources for future progress. If you stifle that, you're weaker for it, period. The infant firm argument is one for a 30-year old infant; we find these firms never quite "grow up" or end their appetite for subsidization.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile "It's unfettered hyperbole to believe the South would attack the North." Yet that's exactly what happened. I'm amazed by pro-Confederates who behave as if the siezure of Federal mints and arsenals and the attack on Ft. Sumter never happened. What would be our reaction if Fort Bragg was attacked by the North Carolina National Guard? Would the Army Chief of Staff advise the President not to retaliate because the rebels are protected by states' rights and the Constitution?
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
You know my point. The South had no intention of invading all the way up to New York for example; they could only hope to endure the storm and the North eventually give up.
So, when a different country attacks us, we're obliged to annex them after defeating them? That's a lot of nonsense. Unless you're here today willing to admit the Federal gov't was imperialistic.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile Where did I say that defeated countries should be annexed, or that the Confederacy's war aim was to conquer the North? You're obviously skirting my point, which is that Lincoln had every legal and historical precedent to put down an armed rebellion. And if you don't think the US had the right, you can view the war as an exercise in Manifest Destiny, which was strongly supported by the Southern leaders. I don't deny US imperialism. The CSA wished to expand its territory too.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
If you argue for what the North did, you must also endorse the annexation of the South after the war. Your argument was if the South attacks Federal property, the Feds must protect it and declare war. Okay, the war's over, does that mean we annex defeated war opponents?
The US Federal gov't did not have the right to end secession. You're willfully ignoring so much literature of the Founding Fathers. Lincoln even said himself (the lying murderer that he was) a state's right to
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile In this case, yes. The rebels were our countrymen to begin with. This was an internal rebellion, not a war between two different nations. You're taking Lincoln's 1848 speech out of context. He believed in the right of revolution. Secession is not the same thing. If my views contradict some of the Founding Fathers' beliefs, so be it. They weren't any more infallible than we are.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
secede was one of the most sacred. Just because someone opposes Northern aggression, it does not logically follow they support the CSA who removed freedom of speech, press, etc. I'm no hypocrite.
Bank runs are healthy for an economy. If fractonal-reserves isn't the exact definition of fraud, I don't know the meaning of the term. I thought you said you were a different kind of historian?
You feel vindicated by the fact that tyranny is more popular than Liberty? What?
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
another country. Several of the founding fathers would have agreed with the secession and few, if any, states would have ratified the Constitution if they knew down the road that they wouldn't be allowed to secede.
It's true that historians do exist who consider the US Constitution, but my statement is still true. It is a rare group who does so. But, I'm glad you can speak out against collectivist fallacies, if only to support yourself. It is a collectivist fallacy that
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
Considering I just watched "America: The Story of Us" a few weeks ago wherein all contributors said the New Deal and WWII got us out of the Great Depression, I would say the majority of historians don't know a lick of economics. This was also my experience in a magnet high school and throughout college. Rarely, also, do historians ever question whether something was unconstitutional.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile World War II got us out of the Great Depression; the New Deal made the Depression worse! "Rarely do historians ever question whether something was unconstitutional." This is an incredible statement. Historians (reputable ones, not the socialist morons that usually populate colleges and the ignorant ones who teach in high schools) ALWAYS consider the Constitution and its impact on the events of our history. We historians are a varied lot who can't be grouped in one category.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
"preseving the union" would be beneficial to all, particuarly the hundreds of thousands left dead in its wake.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile The hundreds of thousands of dead were the result of secession and rebellion led by the wealthy Southern elite who were prepared to watch the last Confederate soldier die before surrendering one iota of their wealth, power, and status. Every nation has a natural right to preserve its territorial integrity. If the South had won, we'd be a collection of weaker, smaller nations like Europe today or like China before WWII.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
Both sides in war send the young, poor, and dumb to die in place of the rich elite. It's how it's always been. The point is this particular war was initiated by the North--the majority, if not all, of the conflict occurred in the South. Last I checked, secession =/= invasion. You have to admit the priests of the state were hard at work brainwashing people into believing it was an internal civil war for who led the country (traditionally, what a civil war means).
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile True, it wasn't a civil war by the traditional definition; no reputable historian is claiming that it was. It was a rebellion instigated by a slaveholding elite for the purpose of eradicating what it viewed as a threat to the plantation system. Read the declarations of secession by the seceding states and you'll find that these men told us exactly why they decided to leave the Union. Tariffs are mentioned only briefly in Georgia's document. The others don't mention it at all.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
There's no doubt that slaveholders would desire to maintain their hold. Only a fool would argue otherwise. But, it's just an outright lie to suggest the North invaded the South over slavery. The "social" reasons for the war got pushed too hard by the priests of the state and those near Lincoln didn't begin it until half of the war was over. The North were rabid racists as well, noting employing black soldiers until after they saw the Confederates do so, but still paying them
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile Of course that would be an outright lie. The North invaded the South to end the rebellion and restore the Union, after US troops had been attacked. You're mistaken about black troops. The Confederate War Department only authorized their use three weeks before Appomattox. A mere handful of them fought for the South prior to this, without the knowledge or support of the CS government.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
half the wages of a white soldier. The Confederates on the other hand paid their black soldiers the same as their white soldiers. There are an enormous amount of these little ironies. What kids get taught in high school--that the North were the knights in shining armor, there to restore Liberty--is a crock of shit.
Look, regardless what is written in one document or another (I fully concede slaveholders don't want slavery abolished, but you must also concede Lincoln was willing
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile White soldiers in the Union Army were paid $13/month. Blacks $10/month. Half??? Black US troops were paid the same as whites beginning in 1864. Confederate general Cleburne had his military career wrecked when he suggested to Davis that blacks be armed and put into the CS army en masse.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
My source is the Austrian Scholars' Conference on Southern Secession and Reconstruction. Feel free to look up the lecturers and their books. I'm not interested in history enough to validate everything with original sources, but, rather, timeless disciplines like logic, economics, mathematics, and science. What I know is logically true is the North unjustly aggressed and for different reasons (in their own words). You should concede as much. You're basic point so far has been to
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile Your source is mistaken. As I've said before, whenever you have non-historians being paid to speak to other non-historians, you can't expect an objective presentation. Your view here is opinion and emotion, not logic. Not having a solid knowledge of the War and then believing everything these people say is like not adjusting your compass for magnetic variation before making a 1000-mile flight. You'll end up WAY off course.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
Emotion? Don't insult me. I've used logic appropriately. Forgive me if I find hundreds of thousands murdered to be unwarranted and condemnable. It's exaggeration to suggest disagreeing over the exact wage of a soldier to mean I have no factual anchoring. Don't overstep what benefit I've alloted you.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile I had no intention of insulting you personally and I apologize if I did. We're knowledgeable in different areas; your training is in economics and mine is in history. Have you found the declaration of secession documents from GA, SC, MS, and TX? Read them and tell me what the Southern leaders' main reason for secession was, in their own words. You'll find it wasn't the tariff issue. I'll take a look at the book you mentioned earlier.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
Look, even if every single Southern citizen said it was about slavery through and through, it was NOT the reason for the Union in their leader's own words. I have no doubt some Confederates thought the North was gonna threaten slavery if only in the long-term, but the tariff's economic impact was significant.
You have to also understand that history is just data. It means little if you can't also process that data. This is why *most* historians are utterly inept and
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
propagandists. For someone to be "specialized" in an area such as history, it at base means they've covered a lot of material. But, even that is less valuable than someone who's read about only one era but actually knows how to analyze the material. You call the Austrians "non-historians," but you fail to appreciate how valuable the insight is of a true economist's take on history. Without their type, we'd all be memorizing that FDR was God incarnate from the scrolls of his
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
priests. History is nothing more than indoctrination if one doesn't possess a critical mind. You should spend more time questioning the "social" view of the Civil War which was pushed too far by pro-gov't historians. Lincoln would never have spilled so much blood and treasure over blacks. Never.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile I never said the war was a social crusade to end slavery. Emancipation later became a war aim to help ensure that Britain and France would stay out of it. Jumping on the DiLorenzo/Austrian bandwagon while not bothering to learn more about the war betrays the lack of a critical mind. You're analyzing the situation armed only with what this group is telling you. If they told you that blacks were only given half-pay in the Army, what else are they wrong about?
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
I still think the speaker who said that was correct. Rarely in academia is something an out and out lie, but, rather, a skewed presentation. At worst in my eyes, he was factually right but used one anomalous month's pay. I do spend time reading in-depth history, but I have a lot of priorities (physics, chemistry, mathematics, electronics, computers, nutrition, exercise, and on and on; I must prioritize; it's not that I don't recognize the importance of a "clairvoyant" history)
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile Unfortunately, this is one case where the speaker was dead wrong. While it wasn't the central part of the speaker's focus, he erred in saying that black Union privates got half the pay of whites. Even if it was based on an anomolous month's pay, it doesn't fit the army's well-documented pay scale, nor does it address the fact that pay was equalized by war's end. I have the usual assortment of priorities myself--doing nothing but reading history will suck the life out of you...
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
. I will get to reading certain things--I still need to get to WWI and WWII. There is an endless amount of historical data out there someone can analyze (do I read up on how the majority of Americans opposed the Constitution in 1787 or do I read how the Soviets starved the Ukrainians? At what point can someone be said to understand something and move on? Is someone required to know every single soldier's name of a conflict to know why it was fought? Do I need to know the size
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
of the bullet that entered Linoln's skull to know why it was fired? How do you seperate minutia from meaningful information? History carries with it all possible methods of malfeasant analysis and fallacies. In science or math, you either test it, get it right, or get it wrong. I'm not speaking ill of History within this context, but, instead, pointing out the central importance of being able to property sort the endless sea of data.
I understand what the state does to people
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile Therein lies the rub! The key to history is not facts and dates, it's interpretation of primary sources, which involves reading other primary sources written by the same person(s) versus other contemporary accounts to determine the veracity of what the person is saying. History is a science, but not in the same sense that mathematics and physics are. You're absolutely right, there. It doesn't often deal with absolutes--it's HIS STORY, which as you said must be picked apart.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
; I can often read between the lines of history and assess a situation very quickly (FDR suspending the gold clause, US unilaterally ending Bretton-Woods, etc.). History has no other use aside from impressing the masses if it is not an endeavor pursuant of understanding the nature of human society. It will always be repeated (it wouldn't be as meaningful if it wouldn't be), but, I can at least make sense of the chaos as a lone observer and take necessary precautions to maximize
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile History involves a good bit of reading between the lines. In your example, it's essential to examine the historical environment which pushed FDR to suspend the gold clause, rather than jumping to conclusions as to his reasons without examining everything there is to see. History is quite useful for understanding patterns in events and in human behavior. Redistribution of wealth, harsh postwar policies, they've all been tried and have failed before! History does offer lessons.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
If one properly examined the historical environment of FDR with an understanding of catallactics, they'd conclude that central planning must fail and the only way out that wouldn't exacerbate the malinvestment was further Liberty (abolish Fed, fractional-reserves, privatize money, etc.).
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
personal utility and, possible, dodge a bullet (America has been grinding down the road towards violent collapse and further tyranny for decades; when the time comes, I'll know it just as Mises knew about Hitler; I'm already planning on learning Chinese (not China, but Hong Kong / Singapore / NZ / Australia) before I graduate with my degrees.
Tell me, after years of investment, who can be said to have benefited more from an (applicable) knowledge of history, the man who is a huge
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
Civil War buff (down to every tactical maneuver, although I once learned them my brain found better use of that memory space) who gets swept up into the coming USD collapse and further tyrannical consolidation or the guy who stayed honest to reality, vigilant, and expatriates a decade before it happens?
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile I agree completely. The student of the Civil War who is a "regiment numbers and positions" man usually has little understanding of the war as a whole. Tell him about the reasons for wartime inflation in the North and he looks at you with a 'deer in the headlights" expression. Expatriating right now might not be such a bad idea! The USD seems well on the way to collapse; the powers that be didn't learn from the CSA experiment of printing the hell out of unbacked fiat money!
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
Expatriation right now isn't quite the apex moment. America has been significantly gutting its productive capacity since the '70s. It's capital consumption has significantly constrained future growth; we haven't quite reached the point where standard of living is going down quickly as we consume the means of producing even consumer goods and the structure of production regresses, but the consumption-production pattern implies it's eventual realization.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
As Murray Rothbard said, "Capitalism is the fullest expression of Anarchism, and Anarchism is the fullest expression of Capitalism." One must fully reject the state before they fully understand economics. Over time as you expose yourself to more sound economics (not mercantilist Keynesianism which posits there is such an irrational thing as pointless 'underconsumption', i.e. savings which enables lengthening the structure of production for more future consumption, which must be
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
have its capital coercively-stolen to fund pet theory manipulations, if not outright parasitic corruption. But, this experiment must always end the same way in our rational universe of cause and effect.), you will that much more clearly grasp history (i.e. the nature of human society which really is alternatively the definition of economics; when one finally understands economics, it coincides with all political realities as Nature's true gov't--all nation-states are short-term
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
, violent abominations in the eyes of God. Liberty is Justice; if you stand in the way of it, God's designed system will make it such that the very means of manipulating it to carry with it its own destructive end (i.e. "Sic temper tyrannis!" Thus always to tyrants.). Only Liberty is sustainable.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
What do you make of historians like Pat Buchanan himself and his books including "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War"? That's one of the books I was intending on reading to get a more realistic, in-depth view of the politics of WWII (I've already read plenty on the military history of the U.S. Army). History is never arbitrary as it is presented in simplistic high school (sometimes even college courses) where things were they way they were and you just memorize it (e.g.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile Pat Buchanan is not an historian in the true sense; he's an ideologist. I'm looking forward to reading this book. From what I've gathered so far, Buchanan is right in saying that Britain made a costly blunder in committing to war for Poland's sake--they were physically unable to defend Poland in the first place. He's right in saying that the Treaty of Versailles only made the rise of Hitler certain and that Britain should have stopped Hitler sooner. But these are all (cont)
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon points that historians have already noted. He misses the mark in saying that the Holocaust was a symptom of the war and thus the fault of the Western powers for not avoiding this war. The Holocaust was actually one of the main tenets of Hitler's brand of leadership. It was already set in motion by 1934. Buchanan's premise is that Hitler would not have targeted Britain and America if he was allowed to run free in central and eastern Europe and that although his empire would have (cont)
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon been horrible to live under, it would have eventually dissipated, especially after Hitler died. The problem with this is that Hitler had already shown that he could not be trusted and that no amount of territory could satiate his appetite for conquest. There's not enough room here to really get into a discussion of the reviews of this book, both pro and con. You of course can read some great reviews of this book (positive and negative) at Amazon.com. I would say it has both good (cont)
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon and bad points, as far as historical interpretation goes. Since it's a hypothetical scenario (the two Wars having never happened) it's not a cut and dried affair either way, but its main defect as an historical work stems from the fact that only secondary sources were used in its construction--in other words, it was created using works flavored by the bias of other historians. Still, many of Buchanan's points are valid. More later after I've had a chance to actually read it!
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
Nazi Germany allied with Japan. The modern student goes "okay, memorize that piece of information for the test," but they don't go "hmm, why Japan; what was Germany's motive and eventual agenda?") Actors in history often have agendas and plans and the value of history is made invisible if one doesn't make deep connections between each piece of information.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile You're absolutely right. History is generally poorly taught at both the high school and college levels. I was fortunate to have some good history professors in college who were the real thing; not just some lackeys out to turn us into socialists (and there were some of those too!) A knowledgeable interpretation is the key to good history; the events and dates themselves are empty without it. The military and political reasons behind the Tripartite Pact between Germany (cont)
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon and Japan (economics had less to do with it) must be demanded of the student to uncover and understand; otherwise the fact of its existence has no value other than regurgitating it on the exam. I agree with you completely on liberty and capitalism; they're definitely the way to go and our current government in 2010 is destructive to both. I want to learn more about economics; I concur with you that under-covered banks such as those that caused the bank runs prior to the (cont)
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon Federal Reserve Act are fraud. What exactly did you mean when you said that bank runs are good for an economy? Did you mean that they punish banks for maintaining less capital/assets than the total of their clients deposits, discouraging them from this practice in the future?
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
Yes, banks were originally currency warehouses which charged fees for holding clients' gold and silver. A bank run is impossible with 100% reserves. Investing / loaning agencies are the ones who can spend clients' money, but the client signs a contract that he can't always immediately get his money back. Fractional-reserves is literally a substantial rich tax on the poor and middle class as the extra credit extracted from specie-holders (prior to FDR seizing most of everyone's
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
gold) amounts to a diminishing of purchasing power from the honest capital-earners to the banks. This is also what is meant when someone says we have a debt-based money system. Banks used to serve useful functions when they would merely trade titles of gold and silver at the request of a client (clients wouldn't actually carry with them a sack of gold to buy something expensive)--they''d use bank notes (really the same thing as a check today).
One of the first things a gov't
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
seeks to do is control the money supply. Prior to its inception and further unification into gold and silver (it's been many other things throughout history as you might know), gov'ts were simply nomadic bandits which physically pillaged its proceeds. Before the US gov't nationalized their money, their were actually private coining institutions. The Dollar gets its name from a very prestigious and well-respected spanish coiner (i.e. the market rewarded him by using a lot of his
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
coins because he didn't clip, shave, or defraud them of its contents; this one of many examples of how a market can provide services much of the establishment doesn't think is possible--law, security, etc.). The $ symbol itself comes from silver pesos.
It is quite an incredible thing, though, how the intellectuals (priests of the state) wrote history such that bank runs were considered unexplainable phenomena which were eventually solved by the gov't cartelization credit-expansio
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
n. The true story (and I can give you a number of great videos by Murray Rothbard on it) is bank runs kept fraud at least somewhat at bay. The monopolizers didn't like this and found that private trusts inevitably always had rate-busters so they eventually lobbied gov't for a monopoly by decree (the Federal Reserve) which could expand credit of all banks at the same time so that clients would have no where to run their money to.
What's interesting about bank runs as well is they
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
also minimized credit bubbles (boom bust cycles). When a bank expands credit, that deceives the market temporarily that there is an increase in purchasing power and, thus, investment increases (savings doesn't). This changes the spending pattern of consumers. The best way to explain it is how Mises compared it to a builder of a house who has a stack of bricks. As any rational builder would, he will design his house based on how many bricks he has (how big the foundation will be
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
along with the other parts in a proportion he desires). Well, if he thinks he has more bricks than he actually has (i.e the market thinks it has more savings, i.e. real loanable funds, with which to invest than it actually does), he's going to build a very large foundation and when he's getting close to the roof, he's going to realize he's already out of bricks. This is the bust. The unfinished house is devalued (prices crash / stock market crashes--prices are nothing more than
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
valuations of property; you do not want to artifically stop the market's process of realizing what mispriced assets are really worth (trying to keep housing prices up by artificially stimulating demand, which steals even more capital out of the market that could have been used to replenish the previously wasted capital during the "boom"). If the market is free to evaluate assets truly, it can rationally grow the economy without violent fluctuations.
So, the builder has to
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
deconstruct the house and rebuild it in proper proportion (costing time which is equivalent to the wasted savings that was malinvested). This is known as the recession. The market corrects inflated prices (few people ever look at stock market crashes as healthy aside from the Austrians) and companies go bankrupt as their expenditures outweigh their overvalued assets which have now crashed (often this has chain effects as companies which owned bankrupt companies then go bankrupt).
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
But, this mispricing of assets didn't occur in a vacuum; the market was temporarily deceived by the credit expansion and, thus, allocated real savings into investments it made on the margin (malinvestments--eventually, in a pure economy, nothing is a malinvestment; the quality of being a malinvestment is merely its mistiming). Thus, the market's loan market is now poorer during the bust then before the boom (no different than how any individual actor would be poorer if he changed
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
his consuming habits because he misread his lottery ticket). The market through its natural productive growth mechanism will replenish the savings, but much quicker if interest rates are private (and, thus, savings is greatly incentivized with a higher yield rate).
So bank runs can keep this kind of credit cycle much smaller than if all banks expand credit at the same time.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile Now that is very interesting. That is the first good explanation I've read which explains why the Federal Reserve is harmful. It's ironic that the biggest supporters of the Federal Reserve Act prior to its ratification were the poorer people hailing from the poorest states. They ended up being the ones who suffered most from it during recessions.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
While that dynamic is common (the poor begging for socialized healthcare are the first to suffer once it causes further shortages as the gov't artificially keeps prices down and misallocates resources in its management), the biggest proponents of the Federal Reserve in terms of actual time investment and lobbying was the big banks and the Rockefellers and Morgans. I suppose one might say the same thing about the drug companies and health insurance companies lobbying for a mandate.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile From what you've said here, it seems that the Federal Reserve exacerbated the situation that had occured during bank runs. While boom/bust cycles occured during the Free Banking Era when banks printed (often overprinted) their own banknotes, they were magnified after the Federal Reserve Act was passed by the practice of universal credit expansion by all banks at the same time. And unlike in bank runs, clients have no means of checking this credit expansion; no means of
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon "calling their bluff" under the Federal Reserve system. At least that's my understanding of what you've said...it makes perfect sense.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
Technically, it wasn't a free banking era--just a freer banking era. There were still state laws and the gov't did, infact, control the money supply (it's even in the U.S. Constitution; I fully believe that the economy would have been even more prosperous throughout the 1800s if it were the Articles of Confederation instead, though I full concede that the natural growth of gov't and tyranny would have come still, perhaps through outright war).
Well, holders of dollars do have a
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
a way to check it somewhat, although it's ofc not optimal--they can hold a foreign currency or exchange it for commodities, either one is not optimal in the long-term as they're merely havens and offer no growth (it's kind of like how people who hold gold think they're getting richer, but what's really happening is they just are not that much POORER for staying in dollars. Their purchasing power in the long-run really didn't change. It's only through increased production that
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
that individuals become wealthier as their purchasing power increases (because there are more goods on the market with which to exchange, increased Quantity decreases Price as marginal utility decreases, etc.).
Yeah, the gov't will keep the price of wood low because it's a 'moral / social crime' that he can't have it simply because he wants it. Well, this will have greater rammifications on the supply of wood than the Katrina victims possibly not having it allocated to them.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
Picture a shortage of oil because the gov't kept prices artificially low (and, thus, profit motive was low). Well, what's the quicker way out of the shortage, gov't creating artificial incentives to produce oil or simply letting the price of oil fluctuate where it wants to go (i.e. not setting interest rates through the Federal Reserve)? In a very poor loan market, interest rates will be VERY high. Savers will flood the market and most borrowers will run away (economize its use)
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
It's like how the price of wood will go up around the country after a natural disaster where homes were destroyed. There's only so much cut wood out there at any given time. What the market is doing is rationally governing the who needs the scarce wood the most (the guy building a dog house or the displaced homeowners of Katrina?). High prices means the dog house builder defers consumption and this allows only those who need it the most to have that resource available on demand.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile And that's exactly how our government today would screw things up by interfering i.e. by mandating that the man building the doghouse would be given the wood at a much lower price than what the market would naturally set? We're seeing that happen, also.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
--their would be uneconomized usage of wood. This is what happened to the loan markets. With artificially low interest rates (this happens with student loans and college tuition, too, btw), you had uneconomized borrowing (over-leveraging--boy did we hear that word a lot on the news over the past two years) which consumed our real supply of loans quickly. This is what I meant by "capital consumption" earlier when I was discussing how the US has been gutting its productive capacity
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
But, as I was saying earlier, we live in a rational universe made by a designer who made sure it would auto-correct itself (good tends to triumph over evil eventually, etc.). The greedy criminals and Keynesians thought they could temporarily deceive themselves (and reality) with enough mental gymnastics and psuedo-science and statistical over-aggregation.
The fundamental mechanisms inside Nature never change, they wouldn't be fundamental if they did. So, the Fed's time will come
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
whether the American people have the foresight to end it before things get even worse or not.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
So, let's apply this to today. There's a massive credit crunch (i.e. shortage). This means businesses can't get loans because the banks have a VERY limited amount and they can't get much interest on them (in a market where the Fed has nationalized it) anyways, not to mention many of them have bad assets and, thus, might need their loanable assets as collateral for the future. This makes for a very disrupted, poor system. But, there is a way out. Free up the interest rate and the
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
businesses will be able to start getting more loans (interest will be high at first, but, as supply of loanable funds increases, the interest will come back down and regular businesses will be able to afford to borrow, too).
I realize that's a lot of text to flood you with, but that's just the way economics is.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile Don't worry about the long text--I'm following you. Some of what my macroeconomics prof told us back in 1993 is starting to come back to me now! It's making more sense to me now than it did then...
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
If you want to feel really depressed for wasting time in Macro (Micro wasn't a waste though imo), watch this if you haven't already seen it:
watch?v=MnekzRuu8wo
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
do so, but you carry with you the simplified view that an oligarchic rule is just and efficient. One day, if you do the reading and necessary reflection, you'll realize gov't is nothing more than a mafia and, with that, your views will radically change on a number of topics, the American Civil War being one of them.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile I have no illusions about the corruption of our government, believe me. But the fact is that a local government is no less fallible than a central one. I don't see how I can be labeled as a brainwashed believer in big government simply because I support the Union's cause.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
to keep their slavery so long as it didn't expand out west, for racist reasons if you can believe it, and if he could keep his power over them), the economics of the tariff obliterated the southern economy. Just read Calhoun's work on it. The South Carolina movement was what lead to the first english translations of the great free market work the French (Baptiste, Say) had done.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile
Bastiat*
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
Why should someone have to surrender their property to a gov't?
As an Anarcho-Capitalist, I simply disagree that a gov't has the right to maintain its "territorial integrity." But, even taking you on in a modern, popular context, I think your argument still falls flat. How does "integrity" function in an increasingly globalized society? Nations merging is the future. What if one doesn't want to? What if Texas tomorrow says it wants to maintain its "territorial integrity"
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile By the same token, what if Virginia decided in January 1864 that it wanted to secede from the Confederacy and make a separate peace with the North? The Confederacy loses the Tredegar Iron Works, the Richmond Depot, and over 20% of its railroad mileage at the time it needs them the most.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
If you're a huge history buff, you must be aware of the second section of the US that was considering secession as well after witnessing the tyranny of the Federal gov't and what it could potentially lead to. I can't remember what states exactly--perhaps near Illinois. This was one of the factors that hastened Lincoln.
As an Anarcho-Capitalist, you should already know my answer. I believe every individual should be able to secede from everything.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile While I disagree with your philosophy here, I respect your right to your views. I'm well aware that secession was considered several times by Northern states. I feel my position is vindicated by the fact that confederacies in which states' rights are supreme to central power are the least common form of gov't. in the world. I don't, however, believe that individual states should have no sovereignty. There should be a healthy balance between central and state power.
galoon 1 year ago
@galoon
from the Federal Gov't or the eventual North American Union?
Europe isn't "weak" because they're divided into various countries (which isn't exactly true anymore). It's weak because of past economic policies. Also, by weak if you're meaning military might, it's a little bit more complicated with NATO and how we've subsidized their protection (gov't contractors happily helping themselves to more taxpayer funds). What makes a country strong or weak is how free its economy is.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@galoon
As far as WWII getting us out of the Great Depression, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on Keynesian economics as I don't feel like criticizing Keynes' General Theory, mercantilist econ, misinterpretations of Say's Law, cartelization of the interest rate, over-aggregating the interrelations within the structure of production, or the general fallacy that constructing bombs somehow makes you wealthier for the 200th time on YT.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
@selfrealizedexile You must remember that TV programs are mainly intended as entertainment--the shows' producers tend to select historians based on how they want to present the show, while often ignoring historians who contradict what they believe; TV producers aren't terribly knowledgeable of history! Same goes for college professors; about half of my history professors were more interested in making me a liberal than in educating me. I ended up learning my subject area pretty much on my own.
galoon 1 year ago
analysis has lead me to be greatly disgusted with "honest" Abe. I'll finish the videos after I finish the 2-3 audiobooks I'm working on of Mises and Rothbard.
From my own experience, most of the people who defend Lincoln or the North's subjugation of the South unwittingly support a strong central and tyrannical gov't. I don't support slavery; it would have been much more preferable to have instead the slaves eventually resist their oppressors imo. Just as we shouldn't exercise an
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
Self dumb fuck -- actually retard the South had a Nazi like totaltarian hold on the South.
Did you know that from 1820 on -- freedom of the press was officially outlawed in the South? No you didnt.
Freedom of speech was oultawed after 1830.
There were no real elections in the South after 1840 or so.
The South was taken over by extremely violent religious lunatics - much like the Taliban today. No speech or candidates against them was allowed.
Learn the truth dumb fuck
NeilTaxCon 1 year ago
You keep mistaking me for being a support of the South in its entirety; my opposition to slavery should be enough to warrant that; I merely was opposing the North subjugating a seceding entity.
The railroad was definitely not a "brilliant" act of gov't intervention. Study the economic history of railroad subsidization and the ICC.
k, I think you easily auto-defaulted this debate based on your 15 year old maturity.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
interventionist's foreign policy in the Middle East or elsewhere but instead should rely on the native population's natural desire for freedom. The unintended consequences of interventionism are too great; often the freedom fighters confuse you for the enemy, attack you, and are possibly brainwashed by their actual oppressors that you are the great evil and direct their ire of decades of oppression on you instead.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
>Secession wasn't legal or illegal. The Constitution is silent on it.
The definition if "legal" is something that is not "illegal." If they weren't breaking a law by seceding, they should have been allowed to do so.
latewire 2 years ago
@galoon
The constitution isnt silent on secession and Thomas Jefferson was pretty vocal about states rights the 10th amendment suggest this as well. Lincoln was about preserving the union with or without slavery. Slavery was a huge economic mechanism of the south, it was about money/states rights amongst other factors. Under the bill of rights,the feds can come in and protect someones individual liberty. I personally think slavery was used to justify unconstitutional acts of big govt
europa 1 year ago
>In a nutshell, slavery caused secession, and secession caused the war.
Put another way:
What if I show up tomorrow at your house with a bat, and say "IF YOU LEAVE YOUR HOUSE, I'm GONNA WHACK YOU!" if you leave your house, and I hit you, that doesn't make it your fault. I had no right to create such a rule, nor to enforce it.
Yet this is essentially your argument for the war of northern aggression. Not to mention that even if it were "illegal", you legally can't enforce laws with the military.
latewire 2 years ago
See Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution. It gives the government the power to put down insurrections. As for "northern aggression", it's hard to claim that was the case when the Confederates fired on US troops at Fort Sumter, which was situated on ground that was ceded to the Federal government by South Carolina. This was after the rebs seized Federal arsenels, in some cases before their states actually seceded. So what we have is illegal seizure of a Federal installation by South Carolina.
galoon 2 years ago
> Fort Sumter, which was situated on ground that was ceded to the Federal government by South Carolina
That land was ceded when SC was still a part of the union. After they left, that deal was implicitly over. Regardless, the federal government cannot own land in other countries, unless it is with permission from that country. Should that country decide it wishes to reclaim that land, that is NOT GROUNDS FOR $#@!KING WAR
latewire 2 years ago
By that logic, we had no right to occupy our sector of Nazi Germany after World War II. And the fort was still U.S. property. Firing on a U.S. installation and U.S. troops anywhere is grounds for war. If your example is correct, we had no right to base troops in Afghanistan after 9/11.
galoon 2 years ago
>Firing on a U.S. installation and U.S. troops anywhere is grounds for war.
So if we paradrop troops into Iran, they refuse to leave, and they manage to get themselves shot by Iranian soldiers, Iran is the aggressor? Explain that to me.
latewire 2 years ago
>The south promptly instituted its own tariff after secession.
Did you not listen to the video? The north imposed some evil stuff dude
"200% TAX ON BLANKETS"
If the war wasn't about tariffs, the south has some mighty thick skin.
latewire 2 years ago
I've listened to the video, but am also familiar with the primary sources on the War. Any time you have a person like DiLorenzo who is being paid to present his "research" to groups of non-historians, you can be pretty sure you're not getting real history. He takes Lincoln's speeches out of context, often distorting them to conform to his views, and presents only those sources that support his theory.
galoon 2 years ago
> He takes Lincoln's speeches out of context, often distorting them to conform to his views, and presents only those sources that support his theory.
Example?
See I don't think you've actually read the source material at all. Why don't you see lincoln's first inaugural address where he says he wouldn't mind legalizing slavery BY CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
latewire 2 years ago
Here's an example. In "The Real Lincoln", he quotes Lincoln as saying " eliminating every last black person from American soil would be a glorious consummation. What Lincoln actually said was "If as the friends of colonization hope, the present & coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means, succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery; and,at the same time,in restoring a captive people to their long-lost father-land,with bright prospects for the future; (cont.)
galoon 2 years ago
(con't) "and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation." That should tide you over for the meantime. I'll get back to you on the first inauguaral address, because this guy twists it beyond belief.
galoon 2 years ago
Congrats, you read that off wikipedia.
1) He could've said both that quote (from henry clay's eulogy) and another one, both featuring the words "glorious consummation"
2) It's moot, because it's well known lincoln was for the deportation of all black people, regardless if this quote was exactly correct
3) Name another quote. Since you say you've read all the "original sources", and you suggest dilorenzo does this 'all the time', this should be easy, right?
latewire 2 years ago
1)Yep. Got that one off wikipedia. Your point?
2)You have yet to offer any evidence at all to refute anything I've said here or to support the claims you've made. I'm not the one making the ridiculous claim that the War was only about tariffs; you are--therefore the burden of proof is on you, not me. Got anything besides DiLorenzo or the Kennedy brothers?
3)Lincoln did indeed favor deportation, as you call it. It doesn't change the fact that DiLorenzo has obviously distorted the quote.
galoon 2 years ago
Okay, you want to be refuted: you said the morill tariff was passed a year AFTER SC seceded, when it passed the house on May 10, 1860 (SC seceded in DECEMBER 1860).
You were wrong about this point. The "tariff of abominations" was passed prior to secession.
Like all wars, I think this one had multiple causes. DiLorenzo states tariffs were probably the biggest cause of secession in this case. He makes a valid argument.
Saying it's over slavery is far more ridiculous, IMO