 The United States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as the man swallows the arsenic which brings him down in turn Mexico will poison us There's the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I think it's a good way of kicking off This episode of Liberty versus power joined as always by Dr. Patrick Newman author of cronyism Liberty versus power in early America Got the book right there. I can't Minds right there again. If you have not gotten your copy yet using the promo code LVP I Get a little bit of discount the Misa store So Patrick one of the things that I I think when we're going to start off here. I think it's kind of interesting because when most conversations are had about the aggression of Andrew Jackson it is usually from a kind of a very modern Critique right it is a You know, he's portrayed as a Conqueror for like white supremacy right with the entire racially driven narrative that we have right now You know, it is it is pitched as just sort of you know, this this act of brutality in its own right What I think is interesting though is Within your book you highlight the degree that Regardless of those separate issues in itself and then in just the the history there of conflict between American settlers and colonists and citizens versus Native American tribes The other aspect to this is the degree to which This, you know expansion of territory these military adventures Have a direct role in the growth of the state the the build-up of these forces of power and the perversion of Principles not from necessarily a hypocritical You know almond are created equal while owning slaves Jeffersonian sort of way But that are way that which these policies lead directly to the build-up the protection of the American system that were railing against and Previous episodes in the build-up of the state that the Jacksonian revolution was meant to tamp down I think that's kind of a good starting point getting into some of these other topics of this period is Warfare once again being the health of the state Yeah, I think that's a good insight because the Jacksonians Unfortunately, they Failed just like the Jeffersonians. That's that's why the the final part of my book is the failed Jacksonian revolution and even though the Jacksonians made much more notable Reforms than the Jeffersonians, you know getting rid of the bank Weakening fractional reserve Banking, you know government subsidies to monetary institutions getting rid of protective tariffs paying down the national debt Strict constructionism regarding internal improvements all of that good stuff blah blah blah blah the Jacksonians They still ended up supporting this very bellicose war of aggression in this deep six their whole program It was more sudden than what the Jeffersonians had gone through the Jeffersonians much more gradual Really the Jeffersonian revolution started to fail You know really with the Louisiana purchase, which is the end of Jefferson's first administration The Jacksonians, you know, they were still chugging along on good economic reforms in the mid-1840s but shortly thereafter they went the very aggressive War, you know the Mexican war which I know we'll talk about and Once again power power wins as you mentioned the the reform the reformers the the the the forces of liberty they get corrupted power wins and Cronism goes up in the big proximate reason for this this war right that the this health of the state is That's I love that Randolph born quote And in a sense, it's directly related to that other health of the state it's land right so land the the actual Size of the of the government that is in the United States history at least directly linked with war And it's directly linked with cronyism a lot of people don't really recognize that You know, it's easy to talk about central banking and tariffs But there was tons of cronyism as a document in in the book on Land maneuvers and aggressive war and all of that in this also affected the Jacksonians So both the Jeffersonians and the Jacksonians failed Because of war all right that aggressive foreign policy that element of that fourth plank of the American system and the proximate reason For that was the corruption of land. It was just adding new land to the domain was just too tempting And there's this interesting conflict here because obviously, you know, one of the things we've touched on some of these previous episodes is The power the way that the unilateral executive the strong executive here was being was able to be used so You know sword against cronyism against You know these Hamiltonian policies the American system yada yada yada And and you know, there's something certainly to be said throughout history of the role of you know, that sort of strong man Who overthrows corrupt orders and can kind of bring in a new age within a great society? Many such cases if you will But there is always within that sort of historical archetype, right that that kind of that lust for expansion, right? You know, I'm you know, not only am I so great at what I'm able to do for my own civilization But we should we can we should expand this great civilization that we have built for ourselves Outwards and and this this constant sort of of temptation of manifest destiny something that can lead You know, it was a pull on Jefferson as well. It's very interesting Because it's something that again if we're not thinking about this from that framework of an early American You know, where you don't have the the 50 star flag and and you know America as we know it today it's kind of just Very difficult to fathom the idea of an America that was content With being the best state possible for the preservation of the liberties of The you know free Americans that fought its war of national liberation, you know The counterfactual here and you know, what would have happened if instead you would have had Successive Aaron Burr in New Orleans if you would have allowed for parallel Republics to emerge from that original origin story, but you're not under that control I mean that that is a completely, you know a Created an entirely different story from for civilization Western civilization in particular going forward from that It's it's that dynamic here that it's that that's that's what fuels the your plants the seeds for The the American Empire we now have today. Yeah, absolutely because we've mentioned this Before many times. I'm glad you you you mentioned it again that A lot of people think that it was just this preconceived notion the United States has to extend from the east coast to the west coast from all the way to Maine to Florida and You know, we've also got Alaska and Hawaii as well, but it wasn't always the case Time and time again throughout American history. There are multiple chances For the Empire of Liberty, right Thomas Jefferson's old Empire of Liberty of these decentralized Confederacies that were united, you know linked informally Through common language and constitutional norms. All right, and this was this is really I think the True American experiment. Okay, this is really our city on a hill moment And we unfortunately didn't do it and instead we kept on it. Yeah, what was that where we failed? Yeah, we failed Yeah, yeah, we we we we we were not the city on the hill We had the chance so to speak if we followed that And then time and time again is always just this this lure of land that caused politicians You know libertarian politicians to sort of forsake their principles and this even kind of comes about With the concept of manifest destiny. I'm glad you mentioned that Manifest destiny It was was really coined by this newspaper editor John O'Sullivan He was a Van Buren night and he initially thought that okay It would be this gradual process of Western settlement where people settlers would Move into unhomes not you know land that wasn't homesteaded. They would claim it as their own They would then petition to be annexed into the United States Interestingly enough John O'Sullivan was a favor. It was in favor of private Transportation projects, etc. So this is a even something like this. This is a You know quasi libertarian we could say alright, maybe not separate governments at this point, but at least it's it's some sort of gradual voluntary You know increase in the size of the government. Let's say that that was the original manifest destiny according to John O'Sullivan But then he kind of quickly changed tune is like well the United States just needs to just easy to seize things right just take it by force because that's quicker and that's easier and Yeah, this is just the this is just what we're going to do. So Even that concept has been perverted has been perverted We're now we think of always manifest destiny was this aggressive push in it and initially was something different but what happened is again, it's always the The corruption of land that plays such a huge part in Every, you know in the growth of the American Empire and this really continues up and to up through World War two, right? When you have this massive global American Empire, it's it's this land issue That's that's very crucial and you don't hear about it so much anymore precisely because all of the land in the world now Has been at least claimed by governments with the exception of Antarctica, but no one really cares Well, what's interesting too is that and I know you don't touch into a lot of this in the book itself But I know Chris Calton our good buddy has did some some very fascinating episodes on this topic with historical Controversies what we'll link to a few of them in the show notes on on this show But one of things I think it's also interesting within this period is that agree to which you have very ambitious men Trying to rally their own sort of imperialistic dreams, right? You have the filibusters of Cuba and in other South American countries where you have people that with with bright ideas on on You know you get a few good men and you can take over some of these Some of these territories Which then in turn goes into some of things that we're going to talk about here in a moment You know the interests within proslavery forces And and the views on needing to to create more outlets there So to promote that cause that is becoming you know increasingly under attack You know larger aspirations for you know, there's always a temptation for for Gold and in other treasures out there because it's also a possibility. I mean, there's a lot of people that you know these acts of conquests are a way to Make your mark and in a historical sense, right? It's a way to become a a important person At a time where within a new country, you know that that's sort of European aristocracy, you know, you know generations long sort of held titles to You know, noble ranks, you know, this is this is a land of opportunity at this point And if you can go out there and and you know be someone who takes over a territory And able to turn it into something of significance That's your own way of kind of you know establishing your Mark that can last beyond you You know, that's the problem is is that there's something kind of core within human nature The same sort of people that would have the ambition necessary to protect You know a be strong enough as a leader to protect the liberty of citizens That there's always that sort of demon on the shoulder there. It's it's uh I Do you want to talk at all about any of the sort of private expeditions at all or uh, Just kind of against some of the this is not simply something that you know, you have a few You know, it's not like it's crazy Andrew Jackson. That's blood-soaked And and just desperate for conquests. I mean, this is something that there's a lot of different interests here That that are all united on the virtues of this american expansionary period Yeah, so in in my book most of those expeditions. I believe that chris colton has spoken about or in the 1850s um, you know, but particularly in in the caribbean and south america, etc And that's something I hope to certainly cover in a subsequent book Uh, particularly because these types of territorial cronyism Is so important In my own book, I do talk about various excursions into florida and quote-unquote like spontaneous uprisings With assistance For for for people not looking at the video and putting things in quotations From the government, you know, the u.s. Government is is is giving tacit approval for these things and sort of subtly encouraging them This happened in florida This was this this was prominent in in the 1810s before we before we got florida officially in 1819 um And in a sense it even happened in the build-up to the mexican war when we were trying to encourage Uh, the the idea was we wanted to get california And we also saw that there was texas there and texas had broken away from from california And we were basically trying to annex texas Uh in annex war as well. So we could somehow maneuver into getting texas to fight and and and and again some sort of hostilities with mexico Well, then it'd be really easy to just import the war and there was various sort of clandestine attempts at this uh president Polk had sort of given vague approval to common or robert stocked in to basically try and encourage some sort of revolt off the coast of texas near the mexican border In the 1840s and you you do see these and and yeah, this is uh, this is the the old spanish Explorers, I guess into the western hemisphere the god golden glory Uh, a little bit of motivations there, you know, you want to you want you want to really uh stamp your place in history So yeah, you got to take over some land bring in part of the the the mother country and there you go Now that we've tackled the temptation of conquest, um, you know, let's start off Looking into perhaps the most controversial aspect Of the jacksonian administration, which is the treatment of the indians And I think one of the things that's interesting is that you highlight some some scholarship there that while again, you know, if you look back from, you know, a 21st century lens Of jackson's treatment of the natives, you know, there's a lot to critique and and Rightfully so in many cases But that his views of these tribes relative to the time That that he was a lot more sympathetic than one might otherwise believe from someone who made a great name for himself A defending american, you know, you're going after tribes and in various different battles and and Some of that behavior continuing within the administration itself Can you kind of contextualize, you know, andrew jackson's relationship with the native americans Because it's very interesting as if you read his his writings About it, you know, there's there's very much this sort of white man's burden, you know, it's it's it's you know There's ever that confidence kind of intention here but there's there's also a You know a romantic element within the the words to use Words go so far when you're on the war war path against them, but it's it's a little more nuance there I I think you do a great job highlighting that into the book Oh, yeah, I this is I probably would say the most controversial part of my book Uh at least given what some people have have said to me and and some some pushback on on that and this kind of deals with Well, most people say, oh, you know, you you you favor andrew jackson. You think he was a great president I say well, yeah, I think some of his stuff was great and I do think he was a great president That it doesn't mean I think he had he didn't have flaws, but certainly I think he deserves much more appreciation from libertarian circles and small government circles than what is usually Awarded to him let's say and then something a lot of people bring up Maybe outside of the nullification crisis and some of his actions and that they usually bring up. Okay Well, what about the 1830 Indian Removal Act? and so nowadays This is treated as like quasi genocide. Uh, this is andrew jackson Engaging in some sort of quasi, you know, basically genocide against the the the Cherokee and and and and the other The Cherokee the seminal the chickdaws the the chocsaws and the Uh, what was it? Uh, the the creek I'm sorry. So I got all five of them All right, I could do that off could do it off my head Um, and and so the the couple things to know. All right Jackson Well, the big issue that a lot of people don't understand regarding white Indian relations in north america really since the beginning of um, uh, the the the country's founding or the beginning on jamestown 1607 is that There there were different views of property All right in in indians did not homestead to the same extent So the white settlers argued at the at the very least As your average settler and there have been various economists who have done studies and looked at the looked at this and of course Um, you know indians built, you know built huts or they they they could chop down some trees or or farmed, etc But this was not the same extent as your average white settler as your average came to be known as american So the the indians many times many places they were they were there were hunters Okay, they did not necessarily conserve resources. Uh, there's a great book the myth of the ecological indian that sort of disproves a lot of this They would often claim ownership of vast tracts of land. They didn't really um homestead. Okay now Settlers were were no different or governments. Well, I've called that crony, right? And to the the average indian tribe it was sort of property was communal And this led to a bunch of differences So If your average farmer needed only about two acres of land to feed a person, right? Or your average white settler because of farming your average indian in many instances need about 2000 acres Okay, this led to huge conflicts And of course, uh, you know white settlers aggressed on indians But it's important to note that a lot of this was due to disputes over land that Just simply, you know, this does not necessarily always put the indians in the best light They were claiming ownership of land they didn't own And jackson was one of one of these people who believe this particularly in the southwest Because he saw that there were so many settlers from georgia Um and and so on moving into florida moving into alabama moving into mississippi And this was also in the in the midwest as well. This was leading to a lot of conflicts Okay, andrew jackson did one conflicts Um, of course, he might say that uh, he could be aggressive obviously against indians in his own right But he did kind of care for them and sort of this weird Abusive parental relationship. He did he adopted an indian child Who lived I think he died in about the 1820s something like that Um, but so jackson is again, of course in modern sensibilities. He would be a racist. He would be uh condescending paternalist, etc, but It's not very different from many other people during this time period and the people who were different They generally came from states that had already so to speak Resolved their issues With with the various tribes. Okay, so the new england Uh, you know the very pro indian or anti, you know, white aggression on the indians in the southwest But well, well, that's because on the 1600s and 1700s. They may have more or less got rid of them in the exact same way So on this on this whole subject. I'm very influenced by one of my favorite By uh, you know, but my favorite historians of jackson america, which is robert ramini And rothbard was very influenced by robert ramini's analysis of martin van buren his dissertation martin van buren and the making of the democratic party heavily influenced rothbard In this regard, uh, apparently ramini early on in his career was going to write like a multi Volume biography of van buren and steady stuck to jackson. Okay, and and you know, all right So probably better sales and all of that But robert ramini has a great book andrew jackson is indian wars that I think at least puts things in proper perspective. He doesn't Applied what andrew jackson did. He just tries to put it in context And when it came to the indian removal act, basically jackson said, all right The situation is we you know, we can't recon reconcile our differences The the the the the tribes have not civilized There could be have been some bad data regarding the cherokee On this regard that you know, they they did it, you know, civilized in many ways similar to your average white settler including owning slaves black slaves, which is something that your traditional historian always kind of Misses it's it's like, oh, well, why did all the tribes in oklahoma fight for the confederacy in the civil war? All right. Well, you know, they they never really look into that Or they properly appreciate that But the the indian removal act was an example of jacksonian imperialism. It happened early on I think one thing I like to point out and I point this out my book is that The original act appropriated like an absurdly low number for negotiating with indians and removing them It was like less than half a million. It was like a half a million or something in the total cost was in like the tens of millions So this is in my mind This is a something when people say like, oh, you know America was was was super racist, you know This this law got passed, etc. Well, yeah one thing is you basically lie about the cost Right like this and I think it it wouldn't have passed congress if some sort of accurate actual cost Uh expenditure analysis had been uh, you know had been undertaken by congress But it it undeniably was something that uh, you know, it's it's it's it's a it's a sore Mark on jackson's overall record, but he's not as different as prior presidents Including john quincy adams Um as a lot of people like to like to believe and so this is something that I think This is especially a field where andrew jackson needs to be put into the proper historical context One of the other things that I know you bring it up a little bit. Um is working also against the entrance of native tribes was their own corrupt leaders, right? I'm one of my favorite characters is a alexander uh, migillivre migillivre uh, who was uh Nicknamed the talloran tally ran of the creeks I believe it was a scottish born I think his father was scottish his mother was a creek indian And so he became a de facto leader and then negotiated. I think it was one of the first major treaties with george washington um But like but you you have similar sort of tales though. Um, where you've got someone kind of proclaiming themselves as the head of a tribe accepting your money and you know expecting accepting bribes and then going back and You know, it's it's not like these were these were you know actually representing the you know Dictating what was actually the the consent of the tribes themselves, right? And so you you highlight how You know the degree to which there is a lot of Issues as well from tribal leadership that You know kind of led to the inevitable, you know forceful Uh movement kind of the amplification on on you know on top of the the Bargaining itself for the relocation program And and you know the misrepresenting the cost when it was the cost of of uh relocation Uh Starting off very low and the real the real the real cost being much higher than that Um along with the shenanigans on the american government side There's also stuff on the indian side that that only makes us worse because cronyism is not simply A a modern state problem even right? This is something that is kind of baked into all sorts of uh Shady figures claiming leadership of people Absolutely absolutely and this is I I go I go through this particularly What happened is the government would always negotiate with uh The the the the leaders of various tribes and there'd be bribery and in various forms of corruption And related to this was land speculation So leaders would get bribed with land or the land that the indians would take That we would have to see it to the government would then get sold to a bunch of land speculators Some some of whom had a hand in uh pushing for various Um You know the negotiations or removal of the indians, etc This I think is a very interesting story that I touch upon in my book. It deserves Uh, you know definitely more historical analysis, but it's something I think a lot of people Uh, a lot of people don't really know This is one of these areas, especially now in terms of you know, the the growing movement of critical race theory and All all of that that it's not really understood in american history Just how well all right now both sides it wasn't like a good, you know, one side was good one side was right one side Was bad and you know, there were multiple players In this it wasn't just andrew jackson and a couple of white guys Uh from from from from the the federal government Yeah, it's it's always interesting the way some of that history does kind of get changed over time like a Try the uh, was it john randolph that was the or not jim ron randolph. Um, the villain of the pocahontas movie Uh governor ratcliffe. Sorry, uh, like, you know, he's portrayed as like, you know This this this stereotypical like disney villain, but then didn't you read like the the the real don't forget. He was fat Yeah, yeah, you know and then like you read like the real story of it and like the guys literally like skinned and alive By like the tribes when he like and so it's kind of like that's like the worst They could have possibly happened to like someone from like a legacy perspective Like you are turned into the villain of the people, you know This this romantic tale of the people who flay you and you know But but this is kind of just the way way way we've come to expect some of these historical narratives to be written in hindsight But this is another problem though is that you know, we're thinking about the relationships between tribal territories and the american government You know, it's not simply andrew jackson is a factor here It's the the george estate government is going to do its own thing and it's in its own right And then it's it's very easy to kind of justify very aggressive action When you have You know what let's call it, you know, particularly militant groups coming in and and you know scalping women and children In american settlements today that there's this constant sort of unrest here That that also goes on for for good beer at a time, right? You know, not only do we have Um as a consequence of this the second seminal war And and dealing with matters in florida, but you know, we're we're dealing with you You know blood being shed on both sides between, you know american settlers american soldiers and and other you know keepers armed armed agents of various governments versus Native american tribes going up to, you know Custer's great stands right before the last stand was right before the 1876 election there on out Like yeah, there is just this It's difficult to think in hindsight You know, what is a sort of resolution here That makes everyone happy like it's it's it's just one of those unfortunate sort of consequences of history Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think I think that's true and in in in my book I I I knew I had to devote space to it. I devoted I think the proper amount of space given that and I also did this with slavery because my my my goal was to To depict history as how people back then actually thought it and what they weighed as the most important Issues of the day and really during the jacksonian time the most important issues of the day was central banking tariffs and internal improvements It wasn't slavery. It wasn't the it wasn't indians not saying that slavery didn't become a bigger issue later on But again, you're trying to look at it how the actual actors the actual relevant figures in the past What their thought process was That's what I was trying to do. Yeah, and it looks like about that more because you know This is kind of the unfortunate thing and I think it goes directly to that point That a lot of these figures that we've been talking about for a few episodes now You know, the jacksonians become split precisely because the motive the Volizing aspect of jacksonian democracy, right? It was not slavery. It was not indian affairs It was not these white supremacist sort of narratives that you know issues drive driving the support of the common man, right? Well, what it really was on on is is More of those issues which has now led to schisms within the ranks Differences between the views of andrew jackson and the views of of martin van buren You highlight how amos kindle and william legged to leading Propagandus for the jacksonian causes with their own newspapers A kindle in his role as I believe what postmaster general comes out on the side of censorship in the distribution of abolitionist literature Legate attacks it and so it's precisely the fact that there was not consensus on those issues that has now created That this great schism between what was a united Older republican intellectual force Yeah, absolutely because the when it came to slavery during this time period. It was just don't talk about it That was kind of the idea. It's is that well there there are there are differences and just don't talk about it And and and you didn't have to talk about it because there were more pressing issues Central banking, tariffs, internal improvements In that that kind of submerged the issue. There was a sort of a brief Breakout of the issue so to speak with the missouri crisis, but that was it was very very brief Happened around the panic of 1819 your average american cared much more about the panic of 1819 and then it kind of went away It was only really in the mid 1840s that The issue of slavery started to play a bigger role precisely because the other issues had gotten taken care of It's like, okay. Well, we don't have a central bank anymore. We're on the path to free trade. We've paid off the public debt Uh, you know, there's no federal system of internal improvements And you're you're going down the grocery list and it's like then what else in the real reason why it became an issue was it wasn't the issue of slavery per se It was the issue of slavery in the western territories expanding slavery into the west That was always the big issue Even when the northerners were against slavery for the most part even up into really the civil war They never wanted to Get rid of slavery in the south because your average northerner Their black populations were much much lower around three percent of their overall Population as opposed to the south 30 percent and they didn't want newly freed slaves coming up and taking jobs and and all of that So and this is the same way with keeping Uh slavery out of the west. It was like, well, that's just supposed to be for For for for for white americans, etc In that this expansion issue this expansion of slavery into the west was directly linked to obviously expanding the size of the country Because when the original country was created we only had up to the mississippi river Right, we didn't even have the mississippi river Then we had the louisiana purchase. Okay. Well came out of the louisiana purchase Well, the missouri crisis came out of louisiana purchase. Okay, then after that We get um, no we we get florida and we get part of oregon, but you know, oh well Then after that you've got the annexation of texas right and a big issue that made the annexation of texas controversial outside of It being benefiting debt speculators and in land speculators, etc What you're talking about my book Is that once again, it was it was going to open up this conflict this this controversy that really split the the The quote the the elites of the jacksonians um Very deeply marin van buren and in thomas heart betton didn't want to expand slavery in the west jackson and james k polk did betton In van buren really came out against the annexation of texas at least in its its present form Van buren and polk excuse me jackson and polk were in favor and this led to a big split at the 1844 um democratic convention where a lot of people thought martin van buren already lost in 1840 But he was the frontrunner for the nomination Uh, no one was going to choose tyler. So we're going to choose van buren and but instead over this issue, uh, basically polk was able to win a a a um I definitely a dark horse candidate by by all stretches of of the uh, you know by all, you know, normal measures In that this was really the big issue and this is ultimately what what led to later conflicts Uh, it was that the it was the expansion part and it only really came about Because because it's sort of like you got rid of the other things on the to-do list so to speak And of course when you've we've seen the federal government itself become, you know, yes, you know aided by the hamiltonian period aided by the marshal Uh, a judiciary period and things like that, you know, the concerns of what that federal government You know, there was reasons to fear that the federal government could come in and change The way states were operating right and so therefore you really do have You know, you you have to keep make sure that there's equal numbers Of slavery and free states and a national scale Because simply mining your own business and keeping, you know, your own institutions and in this case It's awkward because we're talking about slavery, which is, you know, Not something you want to defend but but it just leads to that that political escalation That that ends up being the root cause of all this because against the concern that the federal government can come in And and impose its own will on some of these matters, which is a constant fear And of course some of this fear is itself, you know, we've talked about last episode and a few others You know, you know this transatlantic persuasion and the the impact of free market thought and and you know the ways that ideologues within England and america and canada were we're kind of working together and and influencing Influencing each other. This is also true with the british abolitionist movement And and you you see a Surge of not only support for abolitionist causes amongst a certain minority Within the north, but that this also changes and heightens a paranoia you know within the south that You know creates a a mentality that explains the way a lot of these states and a lot of these leaders Uh act within the next couple decades that that ends up, you know, all kind of this leading to You know the the civil war later on but you know, there's a mentality here That's also been changing and some of it at byproduct of that transatlantic persuasion. We've talked about in the past Yeah, absolutely because occasionally southerners would always uh, john randolph was was one of them They would always use patrick henry as well. Okay in debates. They'd use what I I called The slavery scare tactic which you basically said well if you're giving the federal government this power then They'll be gonna be able to free the slaves And that wasn't something they really sincerely held that was just something they tried always futilely as like a last ditch effort to kind of try and rally the south on on something, you know, both Proponents southern proponents of big government and southern proponents of small government on this issue. It never really worked Right because again, it wasn't ever really seen as as credible Uh, but what happened is starting in the early 1830s great britain someone unexpectedly enacted a gradual Uh compensated emancipation program in the caribbean and it was like, whoa, okay This came out of nowhere so to speak and this led to Yeah, like you mentioned a little bit of a paranoia amongst southerners that okay Could this happen here? Now we're starting to see that this is actually credible And you see this shift in the the the lage and the excuse me the the um The rhetoric from slavery as a necessary evil to slavery as a positive good Uh in that this it is seemingly becoming more and more of an issue and it undeniably does become more and more of an issue As murray rothbard says with the split in the jackson sony and coalition The south becomes undeniably more proslavery and the democratic party becomes more and more a proslavery party That's less and less limited government focused, right? by the 1850s Democrats were very similar to the wigs. They just supported the different big government programs Both of them were in favor of their own version of the the pet projects at the time Which was internal improvements transcontinental internal improvements. Um, they just always differed over Um other issues, but this is this is something that uh, you know, this transformation You you don't hear about this nowadays And then nowadays it's just that well the the south was in america for that matter overall of america was just evil from the beginning Right, so it's just like well, it's just it's it's it's no analysis of changing politics. It's no analysis of Uh, you know, what were the relevant issues? It's just simply that You know, it's it's the 1619 project. It's like well the beginning of slavery in america like that was that was it Like it was just downhill from there Without even really contextualizing slavery in the world or Slavery as an issue in the united states and and all of that because the idea for a lot of these people It's not really to actually study history. It's it's to support socialism and that's the trojan horse So to speak, but that's a conversation for a different time And of course one of the battlefields in which the slavery Discussion goes on is the discussion of what to do with texas Can you talk a little bit about I mean we should we could do a whole episode itself on just the uniqueness of texas history up into this point Um, but can you talk a little bit about you know, the the the relationship between Americans in texas Um, you know going you're going into this, you know, they're they're Jackson doesn't an axe texas Though he thinks about it martin van buren avoids the issue Um, you know, it's a there's a period between texas independence and texas becoming a state In and you know, you highlight how there's a variety of different interest groups at hand who are very motivated By this annexation of texas. Um, you have debt speculators. You have land speculators And then you have again the slavery political interests Can just dive into some of those dynamics playing out in the way that this leads again Another great expansion of territory and the consequences within Yeah, absolutely because the texas issue Really did wreck the the the jacksonian coalition. It was a giant elephant in the room In kind of the late 1830s early 1840s because texas was an independent country Well, it was part of mexico then there's the texan war the texas war for independence You know, remember the alamo right And and and then there was this independent country that was just kind of sitting there and There were various forces in the united states that wanted to annex texas The first was debt speculators similar to what happened at the beginning of the country's founding There were a lot of people who had purchased A highly depreciated texas debt So in order to fund its war texas issued debt this debt on the secondary market sold for very low rates You know the original sellers would would would get rid of it Speculators are coming and soup it up and the idea was that well If texas is annexed then there's a very high chance that the gup the u.s. Government is going to bail out texas Right and bail out pay off that debt That's actually that ended up happening in the 1850s through a variety of of of um Of of of cronyism the compromise of 1850 in many ways one of the payoffs was paying off texas government to defund its debt speculators Um interestingly enough nicolas biddle the the head of the second bank of the united states his history after the second bank of the united states is always Uh forgotten about and a big reason because of this is that well one, you know, he lost So it's like, you know pick up your bat and go home kid The second reason was that he died at a very young age in the mid-1840s And he would have been known much more for pushing for Expansionism he was a firm proponent of manifest destiny firm proponent of texas annexation of if he did not die early on but so nicolas biddle was a major force in the The the second bank of the united states which still kind of lingered on with the pennsylvania charter um with You know pushing for assuming the debt In a biddle was in close connection with john tyler libertarian president, but i've kind of ranked john tyler lower than Vampirin and jackson because of certain issues some people think that's controversial. I guess that's a conversation again We could discuss later second group of the land speculators a lot of people realized or particularly Growers have caught and a lot of people realized that if the united states annex texas This would boost land values in texas and it would give the south At least in the western hemisphere a near virtual monopoly on producing cotton Again, someone very big in this was nicolas biddle and john tyler reaction on record Presenting yeah, biddle influenced me on this argument because this is a good argument There were also various other land speculators robert walker who later became Uh james k polks his secretary of the treasury. He's known for the very good walker tariff, right? but he also had Some some some dark sides And he was he was involved in this as were many of other tyler associates and then lastly you had the issue of the The pro-slavery forces because a major reason as to why pro-slavery forces wanted additional territory such as initially florida And then texas etc is because it would act as a buffer that made it harder for fugitive slaves to escape right a lot of people argue now that Oh, there's slave capitalism or something like that and they always Dismiss all the mass amount of government regulations that would have to be Uh institute in order to protect slavery a big one was you had to have fugitive slave laws where you could conscript people or Use the arm of the government in order to track down fugitives In that this was a big issue that if slaves could There was a sort of a paranoia among southerners that texas might go abolitionist Thanks to the british This was unfounded, but they thought that well, this is true then slaves in alabama In the newer and in louisiana etc or they're just going to be able to free Be free and just and just go to texas Or or mexico and that was a big issue And so you had these three groups pushing for annexation And this is something that I think it was martin van buren's kind of finest hour That he would always tried to he had done very good as um Jackson secretary of state and then vice president and kind of dissuading jackson from this texas issue It jackson kind of agreed with van buren on only until the 1840s. Did they split van buren in his presidency? Again, he basically punts on the texas issue. He doesn't want to open up this giant can of worms But what happens is as I mentioned with the whole election he loses election and he's trying to go for reelection Um and before he gets the nomination. He basically comes out and he says no, this is a bad idea So this is this is even something the most anti van buren detractors will say that well he he was putting principle over politics so to speak and A lot of people I think you know sort of his finest hour somewhat Be you know because he he sort of lost because of that and And and and so the jacksonian split tyler and polk kind of maneuvered to get texas in the in the union Tricking the senate again using a strong jacksonian executive to do so This is one of these issues of the corrupting nature of power And so texas gets annexed into the united states and with it the potentially explosive issue of war with mexico Because since its independence texas had claimed ownership of a massive amount of land that it didn't really own but it's still just claimed ownership of and that this was uh It was a minefield because uh all it would take is is us troops to move into mex And move into texas or the land texas own claim to own in mexico would say hey This is our land and rightfully so and that's exactly what happened because james quick james k polk did that Exactly right and that's what led to the mexican war more or less some some interesting parallels perhaps with news going on these days where you have a Yes, separatist forces claiming an independent state that becomes annexed that leads to a larger conflict between large territories You know it is interesting how much some of these playbooks that we are seeing from 200 years ago Still have great relevance today in a variety of different ways Um, but you got to talk a little bit then as well because again as as we have seen um, you know one things that the the benefit the great victors of war Are always financial speculators and certain crony interests um Mexico you talk about how uh, uh, zachary taylor Uh, you know is sent into disputed territory, which gets of mexico to to be the first ones to jump Into that race Sparking conflict leading to the mexican war american mexican war Um, you know from while there's you know all sorts of interesting things from just the military perspective from a cronyist perspective um, you know what what are the consequences of This not only in terms of of the expansion obviously because as a result of here We get we finally make it to that pacific ocean, right? We finally see this shining sea um, but but what are the other consequences from a cronyism perspective that come about as from this war with our other neighbor this time to the south The the the the the short answer is it's more or less kind of a revised version of the american system the jacksonians It's spent so much time destroying the american system But the mexican war uh by leading by requiring a huge increase in government power Of course they do huge increase in cronyism So the jacksonians spent a lot of time paying down the public debt Well, of course with the war public debt, uh goes up And who's going to help sell that public debt? Well once again, it's it's uh, it's private bankers and other sorts of interests Fascinating character. Uh, he sort of mentioned in my book throughout his his real hey days in the 1850s And he's really kind of the dominant banker of this period is w. W. Corcoran Is a washington bay a washington dc bank. He actually had a uh, you know, he was he was heavily linked in washington He was also very close with james k. Polk spending money refurbishing the white house and providing the president with investment advice. So that's always a good way uh to to um to to get in the good graces of the head of state and that he's involved in uh, basically earning money by by by helping sell Bonds this enormously increases his prestige and kind of brings about the return of uh, the the the government bank partnership Okay, uh, which leads to a bunch of problems. Um, you obviously have the huge increase in government spending that comes along with financing the public debt And an additional issue That you know, a huge increase in cronyism during this time period was you have all of this land So one there's a creation of the department of the interior, which might be one of the most crony agencies of the government Uh, and it's a direct result from the from from from this war of conquest and the additional reason is now the additional Um factor, excuse me for leading to cronyism is that because you you now have conquered california To benefit internationalist merchants who want to be able to trade in china Now you have to find one way to connect california with the next biggest city east of it Well, san francisco the next city east of it, which is all the way to chicago Which is in a sense like kind of still true today. All right, you know, there's exceptions, but you get the point um, and so that leads to The beginning of all of the the the fights over a transcontinental railroad those really start to begin proposals for them start to begin in the mexican war Also leads to proposals for steamship subsidies. Well until we get the transcontinental railroad We got to have a steamship that will go from New york to california through a railroad Or a canal through the through basically central america, right? And of course the that this leads later on to the panama canal But our main focus now was really in nicro agua around there So we we need these subsidies to steamship companies On the grounds of well again, you got to connect the god the the empire and also military necessity And this leads to cronyism in in that regard So the the jacksonian coalition was in many ways severely damaged by this by this war Because it they had spent so long fighting all of the cronies And then with just this this war within the span of two short years It all kind of comes back right and by the end of this conflict similar to the jeffersonian republicans at the end of the war of 1812 the democrats are this party of big government The major players jackson's dead van buren is actually running in 1848 as a free soil candidate So as a the head of the third party Jacksonians are supporting their version of big government like their own american system so to speak all the wigs are supporting The you continue to support the america the american system and all of that and this is kind of like the the end so to speak unfortunately of The last major Libertarian coalition in the united states that could not only run on libertarian issues But actually get stuff done In congress and at the state level, which is quite incredible when you think about it The the cleveland democrats were always a valiant fighting force But they themselves had had issues and they were always kind of a minority within the democratic party somewhat Or at least i'm one of the only major, you know Not the only major player And that yeah, this is kind of the the the the the end in terms of the last significant fighting force And it has to go it all comes back to the mexican war Yeah, as you you note murray rothbard called this the tragic split in the democratic party and i think it's particularly um tragic What an ending for like van buren and some of this because i mean here's a man whose entire career Is built on recognizing that strength comes from party loyalty And so for him to be the one that ends up running as a free soil candidate breaking away from the party Like you know for him in particular with his entire mindset on this like that that is a a major break for him And of course, this is what brings the the wigs into power taking away just enough from you know from the democrats Who is a democratic candidate at the time off the top of my head? I can't uh luis cas of michigan So just one of those nobodies. I mean it wasn't a nobody at the time, but he yeah, was I mean it's it's michigan No, okay. Yeah, luis cas um close to steven douglas Of illinois kind of in the in the same viewpoints, but he's again another democrat big in the 1850s Just a tragic in there, um One of the things that I think is interesting is when we think about this, you know, thank you there There's so much interest here. It's it's almost to the point like the for the surprising thing is almost that uh america stopped Right with with with texas that it didn't go further south you mentioned how there was potential plans to invade further You know, uh american troops obviously go all the way into mexico sit in mexico city which leads to Uh the treaty which gives us california and and everything in between Talk a little bit about what what was the decision to to stop? Expansion afterwards Obviously in a few years we're going to get distracted with with the slavery issue taking off and all sorts of interesting directions and military forces mounting inward um, but but what what was what you know, the the the reasons for stopping and and not kind of furthering that conquest down south with uh You know some of the other aspirations that we know Where we're had for what could be done with the kind of the western hemisphere as a whole With this, you know american nation Yeah, so the the the polk administration did continue to try to get cuba an old hobby horse for many expansionists Uh, they tried to get it from spain. That didn't work. They also thought about uh, basically taking over the I believe it the yucatan peninsula Um, so that way they could have total control of the caribbean and there were proposals to the all of mexico uh movement which robert walker Uh was was a fan of this was a this was a serious proposal the issue is Congress was exhausted by this time period polk had really burned a lot of capital in his own party So to speak, I mean, it's it's actually a lot of people forget. He died like a couple months after office And and he kind of left the democratic party weekend I mean they obviously lost 1848 to the wigs and it was also just too much land Initially in a big reason that separated at least from the perspective americans um the the southwest from mexico was that Most of the southwest was also not that heavily populated So mexico kind of claimed ownership of it, but they didn't really settle it that much So the appropriate process would have been thomas solvans, you know gradual homesteading bringing it in instead We just try to fight a war uh with mexico to take it. Uh, but mexico proper Uh was much more densely populated and in particular it had a lot of non whites a lot of mexicans and in In there were politicians. They said all right, we'll go for mexico later or we'll make it a colony But right now there's just it it would just be too much and we know we don't feel comfortable about bringing Bringing in a very different population Into the united states. So that's where it was sort of stopped and then that led to basically Really just kind of a consolidation period for for for a bit the the 1890s the beginning of america's imperialist age Would have occurred in the 1850s and there were various Uh attempts to make it occur in the 1850s But it all just the big issue was just the expansion of slavery in the western territories And what to do with the massive amount of territory claimed during the mexican war and then that led to more or less like a 50 year period of consolidation at least in the continental united states I mean, you know, we got a lask later on and stuff, but that that it was it was I mean we we we we You gotta look at a map to just see how much land we took in the in the in the mexican war and how much land The united states added once you add once you're taking consideration texas during this time period I mean within the span of like Five years the size of the country just doubled right and as louisiana purchase was was was one thing I mean this was just uh, this is just huge And it all happened so quickly and and that led to very big changes in in and you know, I hate to end books on a on a sad note, but You know at the end of the day liberty got corrupted power one and this happened not once but twice and That's that's the way it goes One other thing I want to talk talk about is that um, I know roth bar brings us up with with, um his history in this period it's kind of interesting that After kind of the jacksonian revolution and we now have this expansion the franchise that there's almost this race now Where it is a variety of sort of populist movements movements Not with the ideological rigor of say that that van buren old republican sort of spirit um, but you know, william henry harrison's successful campaign against martin van buren following uh, the consequences with uh, uh, you know This is some of the economic distress of of the time and things like that um, you know his entire campaign was Well, we're going to take him out of the limelight We're going to portray him as a country bumpkin with his a hard cider and his log cabin Right, you know, it's the product of you know, kind of politics in the ultimate water down version with with all these sort of gimmicky sort of novelty items and things like that Uh, but then after that you also have the the rise of the anti-masonic party Which you know is trying to fight back against the perception of you know, the great free mason, you know the free mason question if you will that has uh, motivates all different actress actors within that john quincy adams. I believe was it was a Affiliate with that. Um, so that kind of has like a almost kind of a conspiracy sort of bent in its own right Um, I think most of them end up folding into the wigs, but you know, there's there's there's very interesting dynamic going on where You know in in this sort of the the last few election cycles of this Second political party system it's it's these various new sort of forms of sort of populist politics with their own little quirks as kind of a response to the successes of Jackson's electoral success After the end of of the era of good feelings and and sort of that end of of the old next manned up Uh, you know secretary of state takes to position You know aristocratic, you know sort of ladder there Um, I think it's just an interesting that that transformation within some of the party politics side in a variety of different ways Oh, yeah, absolutely. I I find political political history of this time period so fascinating and also with the Uh with with with the parties and and i'm always at my book I talk about when it comes to 1840 and William Henry Harrison I talk about third low weed and and some of the electioneering there and coincidentally third third low weed Uh, was was known in the 1850s as the quote king of the lobby Which all right, you know, maybe maybe a little there's there's something there. Uh, this is something I he's um He's he's one of those the neglected people as are many of the campaign managers of this time period Which I just find fascinating individuals such as henry clay's campaign manager I want to say his name off the top of my head was leslie combs He coincidentally, uh caused clay who was at least outwardly against texas annexation to kind of moderate In 1844 why well he owned the campaign manager owned texas debt So a little a little interesting kind of story there, but yeah the the the the the the parties and It it's it's it's hard to imagine now in this world of just kind of Mushiness where the the establishment on both sides kind of fights for the same thing Some people have made that argument about political parties back in the day, but I just don't find it true so I think that that Ideology mattered and yeah, you had various populist figures that would try to Distill ideology to the masses through their own various ways And I guess Repping up here. Um, just throwing it out. There's one of them the interesting counter histories You know during this, you know, it was kind of a lot of time I think the last few chapters last few episodes we've we've covered But you always have kind of the interesting counterfactual history, you know, what what if William Henry Harrison Uh, you know doesn't spend so much time talking in bad weather leading to his death Um, you know, you have you know, you have William Henry Harrison That was a kind of explicitly anti jacksoni and he wanted to restore the bank Um, you know, he was someone who seemed really dedicated to reversing some of those jacksonian gains Before the jacksonians could screw it up for themselves later on, right? Um, and uh instead john tyler, you know vetoes I believe banking legislation and things like that You do you think if you would have had if you actually had four eight years of William Henry Harrison Where do you think that would have changed some of these battles going on or would have been a kind of an afterthought? Do you think it would have helped some of that jacksonian coalition together having a foil? Or do you think some of these other factors would have just been too too big and there has been no, uh You know, it wouldn't have had that Big of a change in the grand scheme of things We'll never know no Uh, yeah, I think that that's one of those The the issue the funny thing about the wigs is like you kind of got a feel for them Because not once with William Henry Harrison, but twice was Zachary Taylor. The presidents die Right and in this this is yeah, that that's like a huge Uh issue. I mean it's led to various conspiracy theories some of which murray rothbard was fond of entertaining regarding Zachary Taylor That he was poisoned or something like that. Uh, but that that definitely shaped American history and that's why you know the 1830s and 1840s really the jacksonian party I'm excuse me the jacksonian era because even though Unlike during the jeffersonian era the federalists really do get destroyed after the election The wigs are a major force. The issue is though They're just not able to get enough of the population Decide with them and there were many southern wigs Again, it was it was not a north south thing It was a big government versus small government thing both in the north and in the south If William Henry Harrison did win and I mean he did win. Excuse me if he survived if he didn't just Cork off about a year and about a month in office. Excuse me Uh, I think you would have seen the reversals of many jacksonian Programs regarding the central bank regarding the independent treasury, which we actually did see Because there's a missteps by John Tyler in my opinion regarding protective tariffs the wigs leapt at the first opportunity To rescind the compromise of 1833 But I think they would have gone a lot further if Harrison was still alive as well as regarding internal improvements and so on And sometimes it's just historical Uh, you know, it's just a historical accident, right? It's somewhat similar with teddy roosevelt Teddy roosevelt was some people wanted him in the vice presidency because the vice presidency at that time period was seen as a political graveyard Mark hannah who was very anti teddy teddy roosevelt Famously said, uh, don't you see that that madman? Is only one heartbeat away from the presidency something like that and Yeah, that's kind of what happened Where yeah, he took you know, uh, McKinley got got shot And everyone was like, oh, what did we do here? Oh, no Uh, and yeah, and you've got roosevelt. So Interesting counterfactual the answer I would say is is yes I think it could have kept the jacksonians together for a bit But I don't know if they would have been as successful because they would have had to spend more time Kind of going back over tearing down the edifice part of that Success of the jacksonians is you did have 16 years more or less Of of some sort of jacksonian executive In charge Vitoing vetoing vetoing vetoing congressional cronyism. I cannot stress that enough You look at the amount of vetoes jacks and van buren tyler and polk deployed on significant legislation It was much bigger than what was before if you ever won any sort of hope of a libertarian president Or somewhat of a decent president in the modern era for that matter It's only going to come about through vetoes Rotation in office and doing something with the military, right? It's not going to come through congress So that's my two cents on that. Excellent. Well, most importantly for for all of the the bad endings for those Whig presidents best of all Henry clay never was one of them Which I think is something that we could be I'll be happy about That that that all Henry clay never got his his white house run. So we've got now gone through the entirety of cronyism liberty versus power in america I think we might do some some supplemental content Before going into a new period of history There's probably going to be a break in between seasons as Patrick and I kind of get caught up on notes and you know Figure out where we want to go going forward We want to hear from you as listeners as consumers of this content Please continue liking sharing You know all that sort of stuff rate review that helps it get up there more and more But you know, I want to thank everyone out there for the great feedback. We've gotten already if you have any questions Or suggestions things that you want us to go into please feel free to reach out to me tho at mises.org We'd love to hear from you Patrick anything else before we get out of here Now that we have gotten through the entirety of of the subject matter of your book Um and anything you want to add on Ah, well i'm i'm i'm one i'm just thrilled that the Mises Institute was able to do this for my book Not only publish it but also have a podcast that a lot of people could listen to i'm thrilled that people are Are still listening to it. I guess we didn't scare away that many people So so so that's that's good and yeah, and if you have any comments or feedback or things We you would like us to cover again, you can contact though. You can also contact me Uh, you know on social media or via email Uh patrick dot newman one at gmail.com or uh at dr. Patrick Newman on twitter Uh, and yeah, it's just been an absolute pleasure talking about these ideas Uh, we film these on mondays and it's something I look forward to Because we've got we've got good content to discuss and yeah, I just want to say thanks I really appreciate everyone, uh, tuning in purchasing the book reading the book listening to the podcast Following us on social media liking things. It means a lot to me and yeah, thanks so much Well, I'll not know this has been liberty versus power Oh, jeez. Oh, oh Tommy, Tommy, what are you what are you saying?