WEBVTT NOTE The Real Lincoln 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:12.440 The dozens of Northern newspaper editorials in 1860 and early 1861 who said just that, 2 00:00:12.440 --> 00:00:18.000 that it just makes a mockery of the idea of a genuine union of states if some of them 3 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.560 are held as subject provinces at the barrel of a gun. 4 00:00:21.560 --> 00:00:23.720 It's no union, you've destroyed the union. 5 00:00:23.720 --> 00:00:28.480 So he saved the union geographically, but he destroyed it philosophically, which is 6 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:35.480 This is what counts, in my view. He saved the Constitution. You read this everywhere. He saved the Constitution. 7 00:00:35.480 --> 00:00:41.480 I argue in the book that he did permanent and irreparable damage to the Constitution. 8 00:00:41.480 --> 00:00:47.480 And another thing I point out in the book is that left-wing scholars are now admitting this. 9 00:00:47.480 --> 00:00:54.480 It's very interesting. In the early days, 50 or 60 years ago, historians like James Randall would make excuses. 10 00:00:54.480 --> 00:01:01.480 They would look at how Lincoln trashed the constitutional liberty during the war and they would make excuses for it. 11 00:01:01.480 --> 00:01:10.480 He was forced into it, the suspension of habeas corpus didn't last forever, on and on and on, excuse after excuse. 12 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:17.480 But now there are historians such as Gary Wills, or he's not a historian, he's a journalist, and George P. Fletcher, 13 00:01:17.480 --> 00:01:22.480 who's a law professor at Columbia, who are now saying, well yes, Lincoln did all these things, 14 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:30.480 But it's a good thing that he did, because otherwise we may never have been able to adopt egalitarianism in America. 15 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:36.480 That is, the subtitle of Fletcher's book is Our Secret Constitution. 16 00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:43.480 And he makes the argument that, thanks to Lincoln, we subverted and essentially destroyed the real Constitution, 17 00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:50.480 and in its place, through hundreds of legal precedents, have created de facto a new Constitution 18 00:01:50.480 --> 00:01:57.080 that replaces individual liberty as the purpose of government in its place says Fletcher, 19 00:01:57.080 --> 00:02:03.200 egalitarianism, nationalism and democracy, socialism in other words, a pretty good definition 20 00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:04.200 of socialism. 21 00:02:04.200 --> 00:02:08.440 So the leftist historians are now, they're not even trying to make excuses for Lincoln's 22 00:02:08.440 --> 00:02:14.280 trashing of the Constitution, they're saying the ends justify the means now. 23 00:02:14.280 --> 00:02:19.280 Let me give you some examples of what I mean by this, trashing the Constitution. 24 00:02:19.280 --> 00:02:25.280 And some of you who have read some of my articles and things are familiar with this. 25 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:29.280 He invaded the southern states without consulting Congress, that's unconstitutional. 26 00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:32.280 Declared martial law, that's unconstitutional. 27 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:38.280 Blockaded southern ports without declaring war, that's unconstitutional. 28 00:02:38.280 --> 00:02:40.280 Suspended the writ of habeas corpus. 29 00:02:40.280 --> 00:02:44.280 Everybody at the time said only Congress could do that legally. 30 00:02:44.280 --> 00:02:51.280 He imprisoned without trial some 13 northern citizens, arrested and imprisoned newspaper publishers who were critical of him, 31 00:02:51.280 --> 00:03:00.280 censored all telegraph communications, nationalized the railroads, created three new states, Kansas, Nevada and West Virginia, 32 00:03:00.280 --> 00:03:09.280 without the consent of the citizens of those states in order to rig the 1864 elections and give himself more electoral votes. 33 00:03:09.280 --> 00:03:26.280 He had soldiers interfere with elections in the North. They used colored ballots, like a blue ballot was Republican, a red ballot was a Democrat, and if you saw someone of the wrong color, the soldiers would not let them vote in city after city. 34 00:03:26.280 --> 00:03:36.080 Even David Donald, who is probably the preeminent Lincoln scholar of the day, from Harvard, said, I quote him as saying, 35 00:03:36.080 --> 00:03:42.080 With the help of federal bayonets, Lincoln won New York State by 7,000 votes in 1864. 36 00:03:42.080 --> 00:03:46.680 So this is not a secret, this is not something that I've dug up, this has been well known for a long time, 37 00:03:46.680 --> 00:03:52.580 that they literally used bayonets, soldiers of bayonets, to rig the northern elections. 38 00:03:52.580 --> 00:03:59.780 And Clinton Rossiter, who was a very worshipful historian of Lincoln, said this about all this, he said, 39 00:03:59.780 --> 00:04:06.480 This amazing disregard for the Constitution was considered by nobody as legal, end quote. 40 00:04:06.480 --> 00:04:08.420 And that was what Clinton Rossiter. 41 00:04:08.420 --> 00:04:14.780 And the most outrageous thing here was Clement Volandegam of Ohio, a congressman from Ohio, 42 00:04:14.780 --> 00:04:21.180 who was the big thorn in Lincoln's side, he had him deported. 43 00:04:21.180 --> 00:04:27.980 Yeah, deported. And he ended up in Canada. And why did he have him deported? 44 00:04:27.980 --> 00:04:34.380 Well, reading some of Volandegam's speeches is, to me, was thrilling. 45 00:04:34.380 --> 00:04:37.180 It was like reading Thomas Jefferson's political speeches. 46 00:04:37.180 --> 00:04:45.180 He was a real Jeffersonian, a real classical liberal, and I recommend Clement Volandegam to anybody. 47 00:04:45.180 --> 00:04:50.980 But just some of the things he said, the thing that I think was the straw that broke the camel's back 48 00:04:50.980 --> 00:05:05.980 This was a speech in the floor of the House of Representatives where he was criticized, all these obstructions of the Constitution that I just mentioned. 49 00:05:05.980 --> 00:05:15.980 Bill Andigam was criticizing Lincoln for this. He wasn't saying, I'm a secessionist. He wasn't saying anything of the sort. 50 00:05:15.980 --> 00:05:21.980 He was saying, if you want to arrest somebody for treason, do it through the civil law process. 51 00:05:21.980 --> 00:05:27.980 Don't have federal soldiers without a warrant break somebody's front door down like they did to Bill Andigam. 52 00:05:27.980 --> 00:05:32.980 They broke his door down in Dayton, Ohio in the middle of the night, dragged him off to military prison. 53 00:05:32.980 --> 00:05:37.980 No warrants, never arrested or anything, and that happened to 13,000 people. 54 00:05:37.980 --> 00:05:44.980 Here's what Delanigan said. He complained about the quartering of soldiers in private homes without the consent of the owners. 55 00:05:44.980 --> 00:05:51.980 This is in the North, and without any manner having been prescribed by law to the subversion, in part at least, of Maryland, 56 00:05:51.980 --> 00:05:57.980 of our own state government and of the authorities under it, to the censorship of the telegraph, the infringement repeatedly 57 00:05:57.980 --> 00:06:01.980 in one or more of the states of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. 58 00:06:01.980 --> 00:06:09.980 They went around taking arms away from people for their defense, for free speech too has been repeatedly denied. 59 00:06:09.980 --> 00:06:15.980 And then here's the thing, in my opinion, I make this case in the book, the thing that really got Volandegam in trouble, 60 00:06:15.980 --> 00:06:21.980 where he really let the cat out of the bag, where he described the real Lincoln on the floor of the House of Representatives. 61 00:06:21.980 --> 00:06:27.980 And in my opinion, Lincoln could not tolerate this. He took the mask off, he unmasked them. 62 00:06:27.980 --> 00:06:54.980 He said the real purpose of these acts was national banks, bankrupt laws, a vast and permanent public debt, high tariffs, heavy direct taxation, enormous expenditure, gigantic and stupendous peculation and strong government, no more state lines, no more state governments and a consolidated monarchy or vast centralized military despotism. 63 00:06:54.980 --> 00:06:59.980 That's what the land again was a quoting Lincoln of doing. Of course, he did every one of these things. 64 00:06:59.980 --> 00:07:05.980 Nothing here was false. Every single one of these things happened, and so he was deported after that. 65 00:07:10.980 --> 00:07:17.980 Harry Jaffa, another fantasy Lincoln thing I'll mention, Harry Jaffa wrote an article about Lincoln's culture of life, he called it. 66 00:07:17.980 --> 00:07:22.980 Culture of life. I write about Lincoln's culture of death in the book. 67 00:07:22.980 --> 00:07:26.980 Some 50,000 southern civilians were killed by the Federal Army. 68 00:07:26.980 --> 00:07:32.980 One out of four southern white men between 20 and 40 years of age were killed. 69 00:07:32.980 --> 00:07:37.980 Randolph Jackson and Meridian, Mississippi were burned to the ground, as was Atlanta. 70 00:07:37.980 --> 00:07:41.980 When Atlanta was burned, 90% of the structures were burned to the ground. 71 00:07:41.980 --> 00:07:45.980 And then after they were all burned out, winter was coming on, 72 00:07:45.980 --> 00:07:50.980 Sherman ordered the remaining residents to evict them from their homes. 73 00:07:50.980 --> 00:08:04.980 Just imagine if Stonewall Jackson had burned Philadelphia to a smoldering ruin and there were 2,000 people left and it was February in Pennsylvania and he evicted them from their homes and the countryside had no food in it. 74 00:08:04.980 --> 00:08:15.980 That's what Sherman did. Historians would still be writing this as one of the great war crimes in all of history, but it's a glorious achievement now. 75 00:08:15.980 --> 00:08:21.980 Honest Abe, that's a fantasy Lincoln. My Lincoln, the real Lincoln, is a spectacular liar. 76 00:08:21.980 --> 00:08:34.980 One of the interpretations I give of secession, the whole issue of secession, was no one really questioned the right of secession until about the 1840s, 77 00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:44.980 the 1830s actually, when Daniel Webster, the leader of the Whig Party, which was Lincoln's party, decided to rewrite history. 78 00:08:44.980 --> 00:08:50.980 And I mentioned in the book, it reminds me of how the communists rewrote their history to gain power. 79 00:08:50.980 --> 00:08:56.980 And the history that Daniel Webster rewrote was that the federal government created the states. 80 00:08:56.980 --> 00:09:03.980 And that is just totally backwards. It's very clear. I can't see how anybody could make that argument. 81 00:09:03.980 --> 00:09:09.980 But it was the states in their political conventions that created the federal government as their agent. 82 00:09:09.980 --> 00:09:15.460 and no one questioned this at all, but Webster came up with this theory and Lincoln latched 83 00:09:15.460 --> 00:09:17.020 on to it. 84 00:09:17.020 --> 00:09:24.020 And that turned into Lincoln's rationale for the war and for why he argued as a trial lawyer 85 00:09:24.020 --> 00:09:28.900 that the states had no right to secede because the federal government in his view was not 86 00:09:28.900 --> 00:09:34.580 the creature of the states, even though several states as a condition of ratifying the Constitution 87 00:09:34.580 --> 00:09:39.140 explicitly reserved the right to withdraw at any time they thought their rights were 88 00:09:39.140 --> 00:09:46.380 are being violated. Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island did that. It's very clear that 89 00:09:46.380 --> 00:09:53.220 they did that. You can look up, Tocqueville very clearly said this when he was commenting 90 00:09:53.220 --> 00:10:00.820 on the issue of states' rights. So did Alexander Hamilton for that matter, the big centralizer. 91 00:10:00.820 --> 00:10:06.900 But Lincoln, I borrow the phrase from Don Livingston that this was Lincoln's spectacular lie. 92 00:10:06.900 --> 00:10:15.900 It was not just a lie, but it was a spectacular lie. It was breathtaking in its audacity, but that's the lie that was told. 93 00:10:15.900 --> 00:10:23.900 Lincoln is called the great reconciliator. He used beautiful language about binding the nation's wounds during Reconstruction. 94 00:10:23.900 --> 00:10:25.900 You've all heard that, binding the nation's wounds. 95 00:10:25.900 --> 00:10:32.900 I argue that the party of Lincoln poured salt into the nation's wounds for 12 more years after the war was over 96 00:10:32.900 --> 00:11:02.900 because of what they did during Reconstruction, where they disenfranchised white males and enfranchised all the ex-slaves as quickly as they could and voted in tax increase after tax increase after tax increase and heavy debt in the southern states for railroad building again, things like that, and very little came of it in terms of public benefit in the southern states, so I have a chapter on Reconstruction too. 97 00:11:02.900 --> 00:11:20.900 I hope you get an idea of how I came as an economist to this because I thought mercantilism essentially was what Lincoln was all about. 98 00:11:20.900 --> 00:11:23.900 There was always a group of men in America who wanted mercantilism. 99 00:11:23.900 --> 00:11:27.900 Lincoln, in my view, was the political son of Alexander Hamilton. 100 00:11:27.900 --> 00:11:33.900 Alexander Hamilton fought for a highly centralized government, but for what? 101 00:11:33.900 --> 00:11:38.900 Central planning of the economy, high taxes, high public debt, corporate welfare. 102 00:11:38.900 --> 00:11:42.900 That's what it's for. You needed a centralized government for that. 103 00:11:42.900 --> 00:11:49.900 The Whigs battled for this for decades and never had any success until Lincoln came along. 104 00:11:49.900 --> 00:11:54.900 They ended the debate in 1861 and won the debate by force of arms. 105 00:11:54.900 --> 00:11:59.900 They got their way by force and coercion rather than argumentation. 106 00:11:59.900 --> 00:12:02.900 And the final thing I'll say, my time is about up, 107 00:12:02.900 --> 00:12:07.900 is some of the great classical liberals or libertarians of the day 108 00:12:07.900 --> 00:12:11.900 understood the real meaning of what happened here, what was happening. 109 00:12:11.900 --> 00:12:16.900 And some of you, many of you have probably read this, even I've quoted it in a few places. 110 00:12:16.900 --> 00:12:20.900 But Lord Acton, the great historian of liberty, 111 00:12:20.900 --> 00:12:31.900 and Social Liberty had a correspondence with Robert E. Lee and in November 4th, 1866 he wrote to General Lee and said this, 112 00:12:31.900 --> 00:12:38.900 I saw in states' rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will and secession filled me with hope, 113 00:12:38.900 --> 00:12:41.900 not as a destruction but as a redemption of democracy. 114 00:12:41.900 --> 00:12:48.900 The institutions of your republic have not exercised on the old world the salutary and liberating influence 115 00:12:48.900 --> 00:13:18.900 I believe that the example of that great reform, the Confederate Constitution, would have blessed all the races of mankind by establishing true freedom purged of the native dangers and disorders of the republics, therefore I deem that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress and our civilization, and I mourn for the stake which was lost at war. 116 00:13:18.900 --> 00:13:23.900 at Richmond, More Deeply Than I Rejoice Over That Which Was Saved at Waterloo." 117 00:13:23.900 --> 00:13:28.900 And that was the great Lord Acton commenting there. 118 00:13:28.900 --> 00:13:34.900 And so just the opposite of the story you hear nowadays, that Lincoln saved government 119 00:13:34.900 --> 00:13:38.900 for the people, by the people, of the people, and he destroyed that. 120 00:13:38.900 --> 00:13:43.900 And I make the argument in the last chapter that this was a turning point in American 121 00:13:43.900 --> 00:13:50.340 and History, where the American citizens went from being the masters to being the servants 122 00:13:50.340 --> 00:13:52.940 of government at this point. 123 00:13:52.940 --> 00:14:01.300 And finally, Lysander Spooner, the great libertarian legal scholar and philosopher, who in the 1840s, 124 00:14:01.300 --> 00:14:06.260 he was a prominent abolitionist in New England, he was from Massachusetts, and his whole family 125 00:14:06.260 --> 00:14:08.020 had been abolitionists. 126 00:14:08.020 --> 00:14:13.060 He had written a defense or an attack on the fugitive slave law. 127 00:14:13.060 --> 00:14:18.980 He wrote a book on jury nullification as a handbook for lawyers in the northern states 128 00:14:18.980 --> 00:14:24.460 to use whenever a runaway slave was brought before trial to be used to make the argument 129 00:14:24.460 --> 00:14:29.300 to give the slave his freedom. And so Lysander Spooner was a famous abolitionist and he was 130 00:14:29.300 --> 00:14:35.100 a brilliant legal scholar. But five years after the war was over, in fact the Massachusetts 131 00:14:35.100 --> 00:14:42.100 bar gave him the highest awards it could give anyone because of his writings on legal strategy 132 00:14:43.060 --> 00:14:45.820 to Deal with Runaway Slaves. 133 00:14:45.820 --> 00:14:48.780 But five years after the war was over, this is what Spooner wrote. 134 00:14:48.780 --> 00:14:54.820 He said, all of these cries of having abolished slavery, of having saved the country, of having 135 00:14:54.820 --> 00:15:00.180 preserved the Union, of establishing a government of consent, and of maintaining the national 136 00:15:00.180 --> 00:15:06.100 honor are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats, so transparent that they ought to 137 00:15:06.100 --> 00:15:09.260 deceive no one, end quote. 138 00:15:09.260 --> 00:15:20.260 But of course, the victors always write the history, so that's why for 135 years now, Americans have been taught about the fantasy Lincoln, but now I'm going to set everyone straight with my book on the real Lincoln. 139 00:15:20.260 --> 00:15:28.260 And it's available for sale wherever books are sold next week or on Amazon.com on the computer downstairs today. 140 00:15:28.260 --> 00:15:43.260 and then my time is up. Laissez-faire books, it's on the cover of the Laissez-faire book catalog this month and they didn't give me a centerfold, I asked for a centerfold, but it's on the cover of Laissez-faire books. Yeah, you can buy it from them. 141 00:15:43.260 --> 00:15:59.100 I'm going to hope to do that. I was telling Hans at lunch that I was on the Bill O'Reilly 142 00:15:59.100 --> 00:16:03.740 show a couple of years ago for my book Food and Drink Police. I'm hoping to get on there 143 00:16:03.740 --> 00:16:09.300 again because he's sort of a big dunce, but he has a big audience. He has a big audience 144 00:16:09.300 --> 00:16:23.300 This is going to be my question. Bill O'Reilly was around when Abraham Lincoln was around. 145 00:16:23.300 --> 00:16:34.300 Did he be able to get the true idea of Abraham Lincoln's thoughts out, or was it much more subtle so that he would be able to take more than a spin zone? 146 00:16:39.300 --> 00:16:47.300 The mayor of New York, Fernando Wood, proposed having New York City secede from the state of New York and the United States. 147 00:16:47.300 --> 00:16:52.300 He wanted it to be what he called a free city because they were free traders. 148 00:16:52.300 --> 00:16:57.300 They relied on international commerce and they did a lot of trade with the South. 149 00:16:57.300 --> 00:17:02.300 And so there was a very strong pro-secession movement in New York City especially. 150 00:17:02.300 --> 00:17:07.600 and the Journal of Commerce and a number of other papers in New York City 151 00:17:07.600 --> 00:17:13.600 were very skeptical of Lincoln and so Lincoln literally had his army go in there 152 00:17:13.600 --> 00:17:19.000 and arrest the editors and the owners and put them in prison in Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor 153 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:23.000 and there were federal troops that went around destroying the printing presses. 154 00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:25.000 They literally destroyed the printing presses. 155 00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:29.200 Other places in the country, they denied them the use of the mails 156 00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:59.200 Because in those days newspapers were all delivered by mail, and so almost all, and so there was one newspaper owner in particular who was critical, like Volandegam was, not urging secession or anything like that, but urging, let's negotiate peace, let's try to negotiate peace, or let's not have the income tax, or let's not have military conscription, let's debate this. They denied them the use of the mail, the one newspaper owner then hired private couriers, which I think was probably the first 157 00:17:59.200 --> 00:18:08.200 The first paper boys ever in America, but at that point, Lincoln sent the army in and shut them down altogether, because they got around his regulation. 158 00:18:08.200 --> 00:18:15.200 And so there were dozens, probably hundreds of newspapers that literally the owners and editors were put into prison, 159 00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:20.200 and the writ of habeas corpus had been suspended by Lincoln unilaterally without Congress. 160 00:18:20.200 --> 00:18:25.200 Congress eventually got around to Robert Stamping it, and so there was no warrant. 161 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:28.200 No one ever arrested them or charged them with anything. 162 00:18:28.200 --> 00:18:33.200 They just put them in prison for a while and that of course sent the message to every other newspaper in America 163 00:18:33.200 --> 00:18:38.200 that you don't criticize Abraham Lincoln for fear of being thrown in prison. 164 00:18:38.200 --> 00:18:41.200 And so I think that had that effect. 165 00:18:41.200 --> 00:18:48.200 And so Bill O'Reilly, he would have been a stooge like the rest of them were in the Northern press, I think. 166 00:18:48.200 --> 00:18:53.200 Either that or he would have been in prison. 167 00:18:53.200 --> 00:18:58.200 So if I go on a show, I'll ask him that question. I'll give him these facts. 168 00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:00.200 Yes, sir? 169 00:19:00.200 --> 00:19:11.200 Is it your perception that the talk would have been better off if Lincoln survived or would have been dead? 170 00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:19.200 Well, that's tough to say. And most people will say, well, of course, if he'd have survived, there would have been as much revenge. 171 00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:34.200 But Lincoln was a consummate politician his whole political life. Murray Rothbard once said to call him a consummate politician means he was a consummate liar, conniver and manipulator. That's what he was. 172 00:19:34.200 --> 00:19:47.200 And what happened after his assassination during so-called reconstruction was the Republican Party had a monopoly for 30 years, essentially. 173 00:19:47.200 --> 00:19:53.200 You know, they essentially controlled things until Franklin Roosevelt was elected, really, in terms of policy. 174 00:19:53.200 --> 00:19:58.200 But for the next 20 or 30 years, I quote the historian Richard Benzell as saying, 175 00:19:58.200 --> 00:20:05.200 the only other example he can think of any political party that had that kind of power were the Bolsheviks in Russia. 176 00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:10.200 You know, as far as, you know, just pure monopoly power in politics. 177 00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:16.200 And Lincoln being such a consummate politician, I think he would have gleefully exercised that power. 178 00:20:16.200 --> 00:20:28.200 He once said, I quote him in my book as saying, his plan for governing the South after the war was to have a 10% minority who were faithful to the Union to govern the rest. 179 00:20:28.200 --> 00:20:31.200 That was his idea of democracy. 180 00:20:31.200 --> 00:20:37.200 So all the talk about Lincoln saving democracy and the consent of the governed, he explicitly said, 181 00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:50.900 If we can find 10% of southerners who are loyal to me, to the federal government, we'll make them all the governors and the senators and the congressmen and the state legislators and we'll have them rule the other 90%. 182 00:20:50.900 --> 00:21:04.000 That was Lincoln's definition of democracy, his own words, and so it may well have been worse, I don't know, but it was bad enough, there was a lot of revenge that was gotten after his death, 183 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:09.520 But it might have been even worse had he still been in charge, I think. 184 00:21:09.520 --> 00:21:16.520 Because I don't believe the business about how he was such a gentle soul and wanted to reconcile the country after... 185 00:21:16.520 --> 00:21:24.360 One thing I'll mention, one of the things that is really spooky about reading Lincoln's speeches 186 00:21:24.360 --> 00:21:29.600 is if you connect these things, Frank Taussig, the great historian of tariff history, 187 00:21:29.600 --> 00:21:37.160 said that in 1857, the average tariff rate in America was 15%, one-five, what Towslick says. 188 00:21:37.160 --> 00:21:41.040 It's tricky to compute average tariff rates sometimes, but that's what he said. 189 00:21:41.040 --> 00:21:45.880 He said it was the lowest tariff rate of anywhere in the 19th century. 190 00:21:45.880 --> 00:21:53.080 The Republicans come in and they propose making the average tariff rate 47%, 191 00:21:53.080 --> 00:21:55.720 pretty much tripling the tariff rate. 192 00:21:55.720 --> 00:22:00.880 At the time, Southerners were paying about 80% of all tariff revenues, so they're already 193 00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:05.160 paying 80%, and here comes Lincoln and the Republicans saying, we're going to triple 194 00:22:05.160 --> 00:22:07.600 the rate that you're paying. 195 00:22:07.600 --> 00:22:12.680 And then, in his first inaugural address, he says, in his first inaugural address, I 196 00:22:12.680 --> 00:22:18.180 don't want to look for it, take too much time, but he, that one of my duties is to collect 197 00:22:18.180 --> 00:22:25.280 the tariff revenues, and save for that, there will be no invasion of any state. 198 00:22:25.280 --> 00:22:30.280 That's a lawyer's way of saying, if you don't collect this triple tax rate, I'm going to invade. 199 00:22:30.280 --> 00:22:34.280 That's what he said in the first inaugural. So what were the Southerners to think? 200 00:22:34.280 --> 00:22:38.280 They're already being plundered, paying 80% of all federal taxes. 201 00:22:38.280 --> 00:22:42.280 The Republicans are in. It's a sectional party only from the north. 202 00:22:42.280 --> 00:22:45.280 We're going to triple the amount of plunder. 203 00:22:45.280 --> 00:22:49.280 And then they have Lincoln there saying, and if you don't pay, we're going to shoot. 204 00:22:49.280 --> 00:22:54.280 The South Carolinians in 1828 nullified the tariff of abominations. 205 00:22:54.280 --> 00:23:01.280 I think it's a great biography. One measure of how great it is, is I looked through a lot of the Lincoln literature for references to it, and wherever I did find a reference to it, I would find a distinguished historian saying, well, there's a lot of references to it. 206 00:23:24.280 --> 00:23:34.280 This guy, Edgar Lee Masters, who wrote this book on Lincoln, but it's not a serious book and you shouldn't read it, and so, to me, that's a sign that it's a great book. 207 00:23:34.280 --> 00:23:42.280 Oh yes, I know it has been reprinted by your foundation, I think. I own a copy. 208 00:23:42.280 --> 00:23:48.280 Well, let me quote Edgar Lee Masters. I would recommend the book, the Edgar Lee Masters, to anyone. 209 00:23:48.280 --> 00:24:03.280 The New Biography of Masters is out, and Professor Russell at the John M. C. Logan College in Southern Illinois, he wrote the New Introduction to the Biography. 210 00:24:03.280 --> 00:24:10.280 He mentions the Master of Writing and Biography. 211 00:24:10.280 --> 00:24:20.280 He doesn't mention the borrowing, he doesn't mention the fact that he wrote the new introduction, and so it comes in, you know, it's an own book. 212 00:24:40.280 --> 00:25:10.280 out of the country, and he wrote, this book is very well researched, and I've looked around also at the mainstream historians, what have they said about LaRone Bennett Jr., the man's name, it's a non-book, even Gabor Borat has a whole chapter on colonization in his latest book, and he does not cite LaRone Bennett Jr., even though he smears LaRone Bennett Jr. in the text, but he does not footnote it so that you can tell the title of his book. That's how they operate. 213 00:25:10.280 --> 00:25:20.280 He was Clarence Darrow's law partner. He was the author of the Spoon River Anthology, a famous playwright. I think it's still playing on Broadway, Spoon River Anthology. 214 00:25:20.280 --> 00:25:35.280 But he understood Lincoln very well, and he gave me a lot of clues. One of my themes is Lincoln was a mercantilist. That's what motivated him. He wanted to be the DeWitt Clinton of Illinois. 215 00:25:35.280 --> 00:25:46.280 I remember reading that too. But Masters, Lincoln said over and over and over again, Henry Clay was his role model. 216 00:25:46.280 --> 00:25:51.280 He said over and over and over again, that's Henry Clay. And here's one minute. 217 00:25:51.280 --> 00:25:54.280 This will be the last thing I'll say and then we'll take a break. 218 00:25:54.280 --> 00:25:58.280 But maybe my watch stopped. It's still going. 219 00:25:58.280 --> 00:26:02.280 I wear a Swiss Army watch because there's no such thing as a Swiss Army, by the way. 220 00:26:02.280 --> 00:26:08.280 They don't have an army in Switzerland. Everyone's required to own a machine gun, but there's no army. 221 00:26:08.280 --> 00:26:14.280 It's what Edgar Lee Masters said about Henry Clay, who Lincoln was his idol. He said, 222 00:26:14.280 --> 00:26:22.280 Henry Clay was a champion of that political system, which doles favors to the strong in order to win and to keep their adherence to the government. 223 00:26:22.280 --> 00:26:26.280 His system offered shelter to devious schemes and corrupt enterprises. 224 00:26:26.280 --> 00:26:39.780 He was the beloved son of Alexander Hamilton, figuratively speaking, with his corrupt funding schemes, his superstitions concerning the advantage of a public debt, and a people taxed to make profits for enterprises that cannot stand alone. 225 00:26:39.780 --> 00:26:50.280 His example and his doctrines led to the creation of a party, the Whig Party, that had no platform to announce because its principles were plunder and nothing else. End quote. 226 00:26:50.280 --> 00:26:55.280 And that could have been said about Abraham Lincoln as well. That's all we have time for, I guess.