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Title: Why the South Was Right, the North Wrong
Source:
The Future of Freedom Foundation
URL Source: http://www.fff.org/freedom/1100f.asp
Published: Nov 10, 2000
Author: Doug Bandow
Post Date: 2012-08-10 13:08:07 by James Deffenbach
Keywords: None
Views: 236
Comments: 8
THE VICTORS WRITE history books, and the dominant accounts of the Civil War reflect the victorious perspective: misguided Southerners sought to destroy democratic governance and preserve slavery. Led by the heroic Abraham Lincoln, Northerners responded by saving the Union and emancipating the slaves. And for leading his moral crusade, Lincoln is America’s greatest president, martyred in his hour of triumph. Charles Adams, best known for his books on taxation, takes aim at this history. His analysis of what more accurately would be called the War of Northern Aggression is a bit different: When in the Course of Human Events offers a sustained challenge to much of the conventional wisdom about the conflict. Indeed, the book’s title is a bit misleading. Adams doesn’t so much develop a comprehensive argument for secession as puncture the worst hypocrisies surrounding the North’s decision to initiate war. Observes Adams: “Lincoln’s concern that government ‘of the people’ would perish from the earth if the North lost may have been the biggest absurdity of all.” Particularly valuable is Adams’s critique of Lincoln. The victors’ history books tend to glide by Lincoln’s constitutional usurpations and violations. Adams does not. Even those familiar with the 16th president’s unconstitutional militia call, suspension of habeas corpus, and other lawless acts may not know that Lincoln ordered the arrest of U.S. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney for ruling that Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus without congressional approval violated the law. Only the failure of a U.S. marshal to carry out the order “saved the president from what would have been his worst crime against the constitutional scheme of government,” the author writes. Adams’s most detailed argument, with interesting citations to domestic and foreign opinion of the time, is that the federal tariff was more responsible than slavery for the war. Certainly the tariff was a factor in the North’s decision to use force to prevent the South from leaving. Abolition was not particularly important: as Adams details, most Northern states shared the racism of the South, and several refused to allow free blacks to enter. Concern over the effects of lost revenue — the tariff was the federal government’s most important tax — and creation of a veritable free-trade zone in the South stoked Northern opposition to secession. Still, protectionism alone might not have been enough to justify a Northern invasion. Raw nationalism and anger over the South’s decision to pick up its marbles and go home also were important. Taken together, the combination proved irresistible, especially when most war hawks thought that little fighting would be necessary to reunite the states. This fatal underestimation of the costs of war, by both sides, might have been the decisive factor in leading the Southern states to secede and the Northern states to try to stop them. Adams’s emphasis on the tariff is less satisfactory when applied to the departing states. Although the protective tariffs passed at the behest of Northern manufacturing interests rankled Southerners, Lincoln’s election did not dramatically impact that issue. The rush out of the Union by the seven Deep South states reflected anger over the triumph of someone viewed as hostile to the South and fundamental fears about the security of the “peculiar institution.” Adams argues that the institution of slavery had never been more secure — but sometimes even otherwise rational people act irrationally. Indeed, the slave states could fear the continuing effectiveness of paper guarantees, especially if Lincoln used federal institutions to campaign against slavery. Not one to shy from controversy, Adams charges Northern generals with barbarism and war crimes. He contends that the actions of the Ku Klux Klan after the war — before its later lawless campaign against helpless blacks — could be understood in the context of defending Southern society from “the Yankee invaders” during Reconstruction. Finally, Adams offers a wonderfully vicious parsing of Lincoln’s celebrated Gettysburg Address. It might be “good poetry,” Adams writes, but that didn’t make it “good thinking,” based as it was on “a number of errors and falsehoods.” Standard histories of the War between the States make an inviting target for debunking. Adams joyously shoots away. Most of his criticisms hit home, but you don’t have to agree with all of them to recognize that he is right in calling the Civil War “a great national tragedy in every conceivable way,” including “a botched emancipation; the extermination of a whole generation of young men, including hundreds of thousands of teenage boys; the destruction of the constitutional scheme of limited federal power.” It is a war that should never have been fought. Mr. Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, is the author and editor of several books. This article originally appeared in the May 27, 2000, Washington Times. Copyright © News World Communications, Inc., 2000. Reprinted with permission of The Washington Times. Poster Comment: I have just wasted about an hour or so that I will never get back arguing with some Nimrod foreigner over the War of Northern Aggression. He (or she, whatever) took some college courses and now knows all there is to know about Lincoln and the war. Uh huh. I have no hope that the nimrod in question would ever take the time to read any real history like DiLorenzo's book The Real Lincoln or the Kennedy brothers book called The South Was Right. He told me that his college professors would "laugh at you." And I said, not in these exact words, Oh, the humanity! How could I ever overcome such shame that a moron who parrots what he learned in government brainwashing institutions and taught it to others would laugh at me? I then told his dumb@$$ that I might snub around about it but in the fullness of time, perhaps some part of a second, I would get over it.With the passing of time, all wars seem pointless. The American Civil War certainly looks that way at this time in history. Heroes begin to look like fools. The glorious dead, the young soldiers who suffered and died, need to be pitied, and the leaders who led them to early graves need to be lynched. In that war, as in so many wars, the wrong people died.
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#1. To: All (#0)
The following article by Walter Williams would be good to show the guy I was arguing with but you can't post many words at a time on youtube. In 1831, long before the War between the States, South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun said, "Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail." The War between the States answered that question and produced the foundation for the kind of government we have today: consolidated and absolute, based on the unrestrained will of the majority, with force, threats, and intimidation being the order of the day. Today’s federal government is considerably at odds with that envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. Thomas J. DiLorenzo gives an account of how this came about in The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War. As DiLorenzo documents – contrary to conventional wisdom, books about Lincoln, and the lessons taught in schools and colleges – the War between the States was not fought to end slavery; Even if it were, a natural question arises: Why was a costly war fought to end it? African slavery existed in many parts of the Western world, but it did not take warfare to end it. Dozens of countries, including the territorial possessions of the British, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, ended slavery peacefully during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Countries such as Venezuela and Colombia experienced conflict because slave emancipation was simply a ruse for revolutionaries who were seeking state power and were not motivated by emancipation per se. Abraham Lincoln’s direct statements indicated his support for slavery; He defended slave owners’ right to own their property, saying that "when they remind us of their constitutional rights [to own slaves], I acknowledge them, not grudgingly but fully and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the claiming of their fugitives" (in indicating support for the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850). Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was little more than a political gimmick, and he admitted so in a letter to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase: "The original proclamation has no...legal justification, except as a military measure." Secretary of State William Seward said, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free. "* Seward was acknowledging the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation applied only to slaves in states in rebellion against the United States and not to slaves in states not in rebellion. *added emphasis mine The true costs of the War between the States were not the 620,000 battlefield-related deaths, out of a national population of 30 million (were we to control for population growth, that would be equivalent to roughly 5 million battlefield deaths today). The true costs were a change in the character of our government into one feared by the likes of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, and Calhoun – one where states lost most of their sovereignty to the central government. Thomas Jefferson saw as the most important safeguard of the liberties of the people "the support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies." If the federal government makes encroachments on the constitutional rights of the people and the states, what are their options? In a word, their right to secede. Most of today’s Americans believe, as did Abraham Lincoln, that states do not have a right to secession, but that is false. DiLorenzo marshals numerous proofs that from the very founding of our nation the right of secession was seen as a natural right of the people and a last check on abuse by the central government. For example, at Virginia’s ratification convention, the delegates affirmed "that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to injury or oppression." In Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address (1801), he declared, "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." Jefferson was defending the rights of free speech and of secession. Alexis de Tocqueville observed in Democracy in America, "The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; in uniting together they have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the states chooses to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to disapprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right." The right to secession was popularly held as well. DiLorenzo lists newspaper after newspaper editorial arguing the right of secession. Most significantly, these were Northern newspapers. In fact, the first secession movement started in the North, long before shots were fired at Fort Sumter. The New England states debated the idea of secession during the Hartford Convention of 1814–1815. Lincoln’s intentions, as well as those of many Northern politicians, were summarized by Stephen Douglas during the senatorial debates. Douglas accused Lincoln of wanting to "impose on the nation a uniformity of local laws and institutions and a moral homogeneity dictated by the central government" that would "place at defiance the intentions of the republic’s founders." Douglas was right, and Lincoln’s vision for our nation has now been accomplished beyond anything he could have possibly dreamed. The War between the States settled by force whether states could secede. Once it was established that states cannot secede, the federal government, abetted by a Supreme Court unwilling to hold it to its constitutional restraints, was able to run amok over states’ rights, so much so that the protections of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments mean little or nothing today. Not only did the war lay the foundation for eventual nullification or weakening of basic constitutional protections against central government abuses, but it also laid to rest the great principle enunciated in the Declaration of Independence that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." The Real Lincoln contains irrefutable evidence that a more appropriate title for Abraham Lincoln is not the Great Emancipator, but the Great Centralizer. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Lord Acton The human herd stampedes on the fields of facts and the valleys of truth to get to the desert of ignorance. Saman Mohammadi "If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." Mencken "..if the military is going to defend our freedoms, then we need freedoms to defend. Our freedoms must be restored before the military can defend them..." Lawrence M. Vance Você me trata desse jeito só porque eu sou preto. Junior (my youngest son)
Thank you. I haven't seen that before but I have bookmarked this thread and I will see it thanks to you.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Lord Acton The human herd stampedes on the fields of facts and the valleys of truth to get to the desert of ignorance. Saman Mohammadi "If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." Mencken "..if the military is going to defend our freedoms, then we need freedoms to defend. Our freedoms must be restored before the military can defend them..." Lawrence M. Vance Você me trata desse jeito só porque eu sou preto. Junior (my youngest son)
A better hour spent than with a 'noob' ;)
Please add this to your bookmarks, it'll give you everything you need to know about "King Lincoln", may his soul rot in hell:
#2. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
#3. To: Lysander_Spooner (#2)
#4. To: James Deffenbach (#3)
#5. To: James Deffenbach, Lysander_Spooner (#3)
-Alex Kurtagic
#6. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
Why so long? ... but in the fullness of time, perhaps some part of a second, I would get over it.
#7. To: Original_Intent (#6)
It's because of my gentle and sensitive nature you see. That's why it would take all of some part of a second, maybe even up to half of one. Why so long?
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Lord Acton
The human herd stampedes on the fields of facts and the valleys of truth to get to the desert of ignorance. Saman Mohammadi
"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." Mencken
"..if the military is going to defend our freedoms, then we need freedoms to defend. Our freedoms must be restored before the military can defend them..." Lawrence M. Vance
Você me trata desse jeito só porque eu sou preto. Junior (my youngest son)
#8. To: X-15 (#5)
I added that to my bookmarks. Thanks, it looks great.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Lord Acton
The human herd stampedes on the fields of facts and the valleys of truth to get to the desert of ignorance. Saman Mohammadi
"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." Mencken
"..if the military is going to defend our freedoms, then we need freedoms to defend. Our freedoms must be restored before the military can defend them..." Lawrence M. Vance
Você me trata desse jeito só porque eu sou preto. Junior (my youngest son)
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