WEBVTT NOTE Origins of War: Civil War and World War I 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.760 One of my fervent hopes that the institute would hold a conference just like this that 2 00:00:08.760 --> 00:00:12.280 emphasizes history. 3 00:00:12.280 --> 00:00:19.120 This is because our understanding or interpretation of history is primarily determines our political 4 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:21.920 and economic views. 5 00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:27.100 Mises was not only an economist, but he was a renaissance type intellectual who was well 6 00:00:27.100 --> 00:00:32.100 are well trained in many disciplines including law, history, and political science. 7 00:00:32.100 --> 00:00:40.100 So I think it's very appropriate that the Mises Institute hold this conference with a primary focus on history. 8 00:00:40.100 --> 00:00:46.100 In the last half of the 20th century, it's been mainly economists who've led the battle for individual freedom. 9 00:00:46.100 --> 00:00:52.100 People like Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Hazlitt, and many others have been the champions of individual freedom 10 00:00:52.100 --> 00:00:57.100 and Visual Freedom, primarily by advocating their economic views on the freedom of the market. 11 00:00:57.100 --> 00:01:03.100 However, there was a time just after World War I when historians were the leaders in this battle, 12 00:01:03.100 --> 00:01:07.100 and they did this primarily through criticism of World War I. 13 00:01:07.100 --> 00:01:11.100 They were especially critical of America's unnecessary entry into that war 14 00:01:11.100 --> 00:01:16.100 and the deleterious consequences to freedom which occurred both during and after the war. 15 00:01:16.100 --> 00:01:23.860 Historians like Harry Elmer Barnes, Sidney Fay, Charles Tansel, Charles Austin Beard 16 00:01:23.860 --> 00:01:28.540 wrote courageously about the deceit and the deception of President Wilson who got us into 17 00:01:28.540 --> 00:01:31.740 that war, unnecessarily. 18 00:01:31.740 --> 00:01:36.300 These historians pointed out how establishment historians were distorting the truth about 19 00:01:36.300 --> 00:01:42.540 how America got into that war, and so they did not want the public to know the truth 20 00:01:42.540 --> 00:01:45.460 about why we entered that war. 21 00:01:45.460 --> 00:01:49.200 As a result of these courageous historians questioning Woodrow Wilson and America's 22 00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:55.260 entry into that war, powerful forces were put into place and they put in a system to 23 00:01:55.260 --> 00:01:59.140 prevent future historians from ever doing this again. 24 00:01:59.140 --> 00:02:03.020 Charles Austin Beard summarized some of the efforts to block historians of the future 25 00:02:03.020 --> 00:02:07.940 from telling the truth, and he's quoted in a book entitled Perpetual War for Perpetual 26 00:02:07.940 --> 00:02:14.260 Peace, which was edited by Harry Elmer Barnes, and Beard states the following quote, 27 00:02:14.260 --> 00:02:25.260 The Rockefeller Foundation and the Council on Foreign Relations intend to prevent, if they can, a repetition of what they call the debunking journalist campaign following World War I. 28 00:02:25.260 --> 00:02:41.260 Translated into precise English, this means that the Foundation and the Council do not want journalists or other persons to examine too closely and to criticize too freely the official propaganda and official statements relative to our basic aims and activities during World War II. 29 00:02:41.260 --> 00:02:47.420 In short, they hope that, among other things, the policies and measures of Franklin D. Roosevelt 30 00:02:47.420 --> 00:02:52.440 will escape in the coming years the critical analysis, the evaluation and the exposition 31 00:02:52.440 --> 00:02:58.980 that befell the policies and measures of Woodrow Wilson and the Entente allies of World War 32 00:02:58.980 --> 00:03:01.300 I, end quote. 33 00:03:01.300 --> 00:03:06.000 The importance of understanding the true facts of history and arriving at a truthful and 34 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:10.720 proper interpretation of historical facts is demonstrated in the statement of Bolingbrook 35 00:03:10.720 --> 00:03:18.180 who said that the importance of history is that it is really philosophy teaching by example. 36 00:03:18.180 --> 00:03:22.640 In other words, history can teach us lessons if it contains truthful facts and a truthful 37 00:03:22.640 --> 00:03:25.960 statement of the ideas that were in place at the time the events occurred. 38 00:03:25.960 --> 00:03:29.480 This will then show us how those ideas worked out in practice. 39 00:03:29.480 --> 00:03:34.080 If those ideas failed, then we can learn our lesson and not repeat the mistakes of the 40 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:35.080 past. 41 00:03:35.080 --> 00:03:38.880 The reasons that mistakes are so often repeated or that history repeats itself in my judgment 42 00:03:38.880 --> 00:03:43.200 is mainly because we do not have a correct understanding of the history of the past events 43 00:03:43.200 --> 00:03:47.280 because we're not told the truth about the facts and the ideas that were in place at 44 00:03:47.280 --> 00:03:52.040 the time the events occurred. This allows people to arrive at a wrong interpretation 45 00:03:52.040 --> 00:03:57.880 of that history and wrong lessons of thought. Frederick Hayek was very aware of the necessity 46 00:03:57.880 --> 00:04:02.240 of correct history forming our views of our political and economic principles and for 47 00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:08.460 this reason he edited a very important book called Capitalism and the Historians published 48 00:04:08.460 --> 00:04:15.500 in 1954. I want to read to you just a portion of his first paragraph in that introduction. 49 00:04:15.500 --> 00:04:22.580 Quote, political opinion and views about historical events ever have been and always must be closely 50 00:04:22.580 --> 00:04:28.340 connected. Past experience is the foundation on which our beliefs about the desirability 51 00:04:28.340 --> 00:04:33.440 of different policies and institutions are mainly based, and our present political views 52 00:04:33.440 --> 00:04:37.440 These views inevitably affect and color our interpretation of the past. 53 00:04:37.440 --> 00:04:42.440 Few men will deny that our views about the goodness or the badness of different institutions 54 00:04:42.440 --> 00:04:48.440 are largely determined by what we believe to have been their effects in the past. 55 00:04:48.440 --> 00:04:53.440 The historical beliefs which guide us in the present are not always in accord with the facts. 56 00:04:53.440 --> 00:05:01.440 Historical myths have perhaps played nearly as great a role in shaping opinion as historical facts. 57 00:05:01.440 --> 00:05:09.440 Yet we can hardly hope to profit from the past experience unless the facts from which we draw our conclusions are correct. 58 00:05:09.440 --> 00:05:24.440 Hayek continues by stating the influence which writers of history thus exercise on public opinion is probably more immediate and extensive than that of the political theorists who launch new ideas. 59 00:05:24.440 --> 00:05:44.440 If you will pardon my recounting of my personal experience when I learned that a person's understanding of history drastically influences their economic and political views, I'll tell you about my ill-fated experience in the early Republican Party of the 1960s. 60 00:05:44.440 --> 00:05:51.480 I became active in the Republican Party in 1961, thinking that my ideas on the free 61 00:05:51.480 --> 00:05:57.280 market and our non-interventionist foreign policy would find a new home in the new Republican 62 00:05:57.280 --> 00:06:02.740 Party, which was being planned at the end of the Eisenhower administration in 1960. 63 00:06:02.740 --> 00:06:07.340 I knew John Grenier, who was head of the Goldwater Strategy. 64 00:06:07.340 --> 00:06:12.440 And so the plan was made to get the South to join with the West and Midwest and remove 65 00:06:12.440 --> 00:06:16.000 To remove the Eastern Liberal Establishment or Rockefeller Establishment from control 66 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:21.520 of the Republican Party, the first step was to get Goldwater nominated and overcome the 67 00:06:21.520 --> 00:06:25.440 influence of the Rockefeller faction in the selection of the candidate, and this took 68 00:06:25.440 --> 00:06:30.240 place according to plan in 1964. 69 00:06:30.240 --> 00:06:35.960 Grenier and we discussed, he did not anticipate that Goldwater would win the election, but 70 00:06:35.960 --> 00:06:39.960 he was considered the best person to nominate in order to change control of the Republican 71 00:06:39.960 --> 00:06:42.960 Party from one route to the other. 72 00:06:42.960 --> 00:06:47.480 I was elected as an alternate delegate to the 1968 National Republican Convention and 73 00:06:47.480 --> 00:06:54.200 began to campaign for my ideas on the free market and a non-interventionist foreign policy. 74 00:06:54.200 --> 00:06:59.620 And my contacts at the convention were mainly with other delegates from Texas and California. 75 00:06:59.620 --> 00:07:03.120 And I had numerous conversations. 76 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:08.520 Just as a footnote, one delegate that I talked to a whole lot was a lawyer from Texas and 77 00:07:08.520 --> 00:07:13.160 And I sort of followed his career. He became a federal judge and later head of the FBI. 78 00:07:13.160 --> 00:07:19.660 His name was William Sessions. But basically my campaign was as follows. I stated we need 79 00:07:19.660 --> 00:07:25.200 for this new Republican party to be the champion of the free enterprise system and therefore 80 00:07:25.200 --> 00:07:29.680 we needed to eliminate and reduce the regulations on the market. We needed to abolish the Federal 81 00:07:29.680 --> 00:07:35.520 Reserve system. We needed to reduce taxes drastically. We needed to legalize the ownership 82 00:07:35.520 --> 00:07:40.440 of Gold and Return Gold Backing to Our Currency. 83 00:07:40.440 --> 00:07:45.640 I stated the Republican Party needed to read, re-adopt the views of the great Republican 84 00:07:45.640 --> 00:07:50.120 Senator Robert Taft and the views of our founders like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, 85 00:07:50.120 --> 00:07:54.920 thereby restoring the idea of a non-interventionist foreign policy and stop being the world policeman. 86 00:07:54.920 --> 00:08:00.640 Of course, we were in the midst of the Vietnam War and it was hard for most people to see 87 00:08:00.640 --> 00:08:05.300 beyond that war to any general foreign policy platform. 88 00:08:05.300 --> 00:08:11.180 And almost uniformly, I got the following responses from a large number of people. Everyone 89 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:16.700 was very sympathetic to the free market ideas. But they understood from history that the 90 00:08:16.700 --> 00:08:22.980 free market ideas had been tried and that they had failed. And their proof was the 1929 91 00:08:22.980 --> 00:08:28.500 Depression. And they argued that history showed that monopolies were created at the end of 92 00:08:28.500 --> 00:08:32.020 the 19th century due to the failure of the free market system and brought on the necessity 93 00:08:32.020 --> 00:08:37.500 of the Sherman Antitrust Law. In foreign policy, I was told that the ideas of the founders 94 00:08:37.500 --> 00:08:43.660 were out of date and that Robert Taft's foreign policy was discredited by the facts of history. 95 00:08:43.660 --> 00:08:48.500 I was told that I needed to learn the lessons of Munich, which was that appeasement leads 96 00:08:48.500 --> 00:08:52.980 to war, and learn the lesson of Pearl Harbor, which was that isolationist views lead to 97 00:08:52.980 --> 00:08:59.100 weakness and encourage the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor. My response to this basically 98 00:08:59.100 --> 00:09:29.100 The 1929 Depression was not a failure of the free market, but it was caused by government intervention into the economy, and especially the Federal Reserve system, which was created in 1913, expanded the credit and the money supply beyond reasonable means. World War I was also a major factor, I argue, told them the free market did not create oppressive monopolies, but it was government that created monopolies, and I cited the history of the railroads as an example. 99 00:09:29.100 --> 00:09:38.460 On foreign policy I said that the lesson of Munich was not that appeasement was bad, but 100 00:09:38.460 --> 00:09:43.380 rather the lesson was that if you ended one war with a fraudulent treaty like the Treaty 101 00:09:43.380 --> 00:09:50.660 of Versailles, then it would cause another war unless you peacefully revised that treaty. 102 00:09:50.660 --> 00:09:54.260 It was this treaty that created the conditions that gave rise to the Nazi party and led to 103 00:09:54.260 --> 00:10:00.100 of World War II, or as I have argued frequently, that World War II was really just a continuation 104 00:10:00.100 --> 00:10:03.760 of World War I with a 20-year recess. 105 00:10:03.760 --> 00:10:07.220 The only way to have avoided another war after the Treaty of Versailles was to have a peaceful 106 00:10:07.220 --> 00:10:10.500 revision of that treaty, and Munich was merely a step towards that. 107 00:10:10.500 --> 00:10:14.960 It's a foolish guarantee of Britain and France to guarantee the defense of Poland that caused 108 00:10:14.960 --> 00:10:17.620 that war to be declared by them. 109 00:10:17.620 --> 00:10:22.220 The issue of Poland should have been peacefully resolved along with the office made to restore 110 00:10:22.220 --> 00:10:27.680 Germany, the German city of Danzig, and settled the corridor problem with just a road over 111 00:10:27.680 --> 00:10:31.420 the corridor to East Prussia, which was the offer the Germans made. 112 00:10:31.420 --> 00:10:36.120 I responded that the lesson of Pearl Harbor was not that non-interventionism or isolationism 113 00:10:36.120 --> 00:10:40.460 led to weakness, but it was the increase in the power of the executive branch which led 114 00:10:40.460 --> 00:10:44.700 to the imperial presidency and allowed the president to use those powers secretly and 115 00:10:44.700 --> 00:10:47.240 to provoke the enemy into firing the first shot. 116 00:10:47.240 --> 00:10:50.940 I argued that the cause of liberty would have been far better served if England and America 117 00:10:50.940 --> 00:10:56.500 and stayed out of World War II and let Hitler and Stalin kill each other off. 118 00:10:56.500 --> 00:11:04.240 Well, I was elected for the 1972 convention as a delegate, and I went back to the convention 119 00:11:04.240 --> 00:11:10.640 armed with three books, Murray Rothbard's book on the 1929 Depression, Hayek's book 120 00:11:10.640 --> 00:11:16.140 on capitalism and historians, and George Morgenstern's book on Pearl Harbor, the story of the secret 121 00:11:16.140 --> 00:11:17.140 of War. 122 00:11:17.140 --> 00:11:21.260 And while I strenuously argued the history and the lessons taught by those books, I had 123 00:11:21.260 --> 00:11:26.540 already become very dispirited and doubted that the Republican Party would fulfill my 124 00:11:26.540 --> 00:11:27.740 hopes. 125 00:11:27.740 --> 00:11:31.500 You may remember that President Nixon had already put on wage and price controls just 126 00:11:31.500 --> 00:11:33.340 before the convention. 127 00:11:33.340 --> 00:11:39.100 He had closed the gold window and announced that he was a Keynesian in his economic views. 128 00:11:39.100 --> 00:11:44.580 I refused to vote for Nixon as a delegate and refused to vote for him in the general election 129 00:11:44.580 --> 00:11:58.740 I tell you this personal story to show you how I learned the importance of people's understanding 130 00:11:58.740 --> 00:12:05.620 of history and how it affects their eventual political and economic views. George Orwell 131 00:12:05.620 --> 00:12:11.820 understood this completely and set this out very clearly in his book 1984. He showed how 132 00:12:11.820 --> 00:12:21.820 This is how you can control not only the present but you can control the future if you can control history and what people understand the lessons of the past are. 133 00:12:21.820 --> 00:12:35.820 My particular interest has been in the history of wars because that's when you see the power of the state in full bloom with its deadly leaves of conscription and false propaganda and taxes in their most virulent form. 134 00:12:35.820 --> 00:12:40.740 Time propaganda becomes the official history after the war because the winners always write 135 00:12:40.740 --> 00:12:44.420 it and they convert that propaganda into the history. 136 00:12:44.420 --> 00:12:50.740 And this is why patriotic political myths are created and called history today. 137 00:12:50.740 --> 00:12:55.860 And with that introduction, I want to cover very briefly two wars and how we got into 138 00:12:55.860 --> 00:12:58.180 those wars. 139 00:12:58.180 --> 00:13:03.420 The first is the American Civil War and World War II, which Arthur Schlesinger Jr. argues 140 00:13:03.420 --> 00:13:08.660 are the two greatest crises of our American history. 141 00:13:08.660 --> 00:13:12.860 These wars are generally credited by historians as being the primary crises of America and 142 00:13:12.860 --> 00:13:16.980 that Lincoln and Roosevelt were the greatest presidents because they tried to keep America 143 00:13:16.980 --> 00:13:18.540 out of these wars. 144 00:13:18.540 --> 00:13:25.020 But after being forced by the enemy into the war, each president provided great leadership. 145 00:13:25.020 --> 00:13:29.300 The establishment historians tell us that the American government was forced into each 146 00:13:29.300 --> 00:13:40.300 The Patriotic Myths that have been generated out of these wars have become the main patriotic political myths of American history. 147 00:13:40.300 --> 00:13:52.300 We're told in our history books and by most intellectuals that these were both noble wars with the Civil War being fought to abolish slavery and World War II being fought to oppose Nazi tyranny. 148 00:13:52.300 --> 00:13:56.500 In my view, both of these wars were unnecessary for the American government to have entered. 149 00:13:56.500 --> 00:14:01.660 And without the secret and deceitful conduct of the Presidents, Lincoln and Roosevelt, 150 00:14:01.660 --> 00:14:05.860 in maneuvering the enemy into firing the first shot, the American government probably would 151 00:14:05.860 --> 00:14:08.320 not have fought these wars. 152 00:14:08.320 --> 00:14:11.900 Individual freedom would be in far better condition today had the American government 153 00:14:11.900 --> 00:14:14.620 followed the policy of its founders. 154 00:14:14.620 --> 00:14:17.900 Let's talk about the Civil War first, and I want you to relax. 155 00:14:17.900 --> 00:14:24.180 I'm not here to defend slavery. I'll tell you that slavery was good. In fact, the abolition 156 00:14:24.180 --> 00:14:29.220 of slavery is one of the great achievements of classical liberalism and the Industrial 157 00:14:29.220 --> 00:14:34.380 Revolution. In fact, it was the ideas of classical liberalism and the Industrial Revolution that 158 00:14:34.380 --> 00:14:40.180 were the main factors in eliminating slavery throughout Western civilization. The abolition 159 00:14:40.180 --> 00:14:44.900 of slavery was one of the great classical liberal achievements along with trying to 160 00:14:44.900 --> 00:14:52.900 of Limit Government, however, I believe that slavery would have been abolished without the Civil War and the war was not fought for the purpose of abolishing it. 161 00:14:52.900 --> 00:15:00.900 There's an interesting book by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel on this subject with the interesting title, Emancipating Slaves and Enslaving Free Men. 162 00:15:00.900 --> 00:15:10.900 At the end of the war, slavery was abolished, but also at the end of the war and due to the war, the American Republic was destroyed and individual freedom and the free market 163 00:15:10.900 --> 00:15:16.900 were severely wounded by the centralization of power into the federal government and the presidency. 164 00:15:16.900 --> 00:15:22.900 I believe the war was actually fought because of economic reasons and this is why the first shots were caused to be fired. 165 00:15:22.900 --> 00:15:31.900 The tax historian Charles Adams who spoke yesterday has done probably more than anyone else to revive the interest of people into what the Civil War was about 166 00:15:31.900 --> 00:15:38.900 and to show that it was a tariff issue which actually caused the disputes between the North and South to turn into a shooting war. 167 00:15:38.900 --> 00:15:49.900 Lincoln, like his contemporary political leader Bismarck of Prussia, both wanted a strong centralized government to control a nation rather than a confederacy. 168 00:15:49.900 --> 00:15:55.900 But both of these politicians were faced with a central government connected to a confederation of fairly independent states. 169 00:15:55.900 --> 00:16:04.900 And they both decided that war was the means to eliminate the confederacies and to create a nation instead with a strong centralized government. 170 00:16:04.900 --> 00:16:14.900 Bismarck got France to declare war by sending them the distorted message called the IMS dispatch which made them so mad that the French initiated the war and declared war. 171 00:16:14.900 --> 00:16:19.900 Lincoln got the South to fire the first shot and that's the story I want to talk to you about today. 172 00:16:19.900 --> 00:16:22.900 One of the stories in addition to World War II. 173 00:16:22.900 --> 00:16:29.900 The story of the American Civil War actually begins at the time of the negotiations about the Constitution and with George Mason in particular. 174 00:16:29.900 --> 00:16:40.900 He was a delegate from Virginia who opposed the provision in the Constitution, which would allow the taxes to be voted on and passed by a simple majority rather than a two-thirds vote. 175 00:16:40.900 --> 00:16:48.900 The issue, you can find it, is voting on what was called the Navigation Act, but included in the Navigation Act was the tariff tax. 176 00:16:48.900 --> 00:16:54.900 The tariff was primary and essentially the only large tax that was to be allowed. 177 00:16:54.900 --> 00:16:59.380 Mason warned that if Congress could pass a tariff with a simple majority vote, the South 178 00:16:59.380 --> 00:17:01.500 would be oppressed. 179 00:17:01.500 --> 00:17:06.740 Fellow delegate James Madison stated that he saw no problem with a simple majority vote 180 00:17:06.740 --> 00:17:09.300 and the Constitution was so written. 181 00:17:09.300 --> 00:17:14.340 And primarily for this reason, Mason refused to sign as a delegate and then he led the 182 00:17:14.340 --> 00:17:19.980 battle in Virginia to try to oppose the adoption of the Constitution by the state of Virginia. 183 00:17:19.980 --> 00:17:28.980 In 1824, Henry Clay advocated the American system, which created a partnership between big government and big business, or the Federal government and big business. 184 00:17:28.980 --> 00:17:37.980 Henry Clay's system further provided that the revenue from the tariff could be used for internal improvements under the General Welfare Clause of the Constitution, which the South opposed. 185 00:17:37.980 --> 00:17:45.980 This meant taking the taxes which were primarily collected in the South, and that was about three-fourths of the taxes were collected in the South. 186 00:17:45.980 --> 00:17:55.980 and then taking that money and converting it into the use by the North to build roads and canals primarily for the benefit of big business. 187 00:17:55.980 --> 00:18:05.980 The reason the South paid most of the tax was because the South was basically agricultural and had virtually no manufacturing and therefore the South was to buy manufactured products. 188 00:18:05.980 --> 00:18:12.980 They had two choices. They could buy foreign goods from England or Europe or they could buy domestic goods from the North. 189 00:18:12.980 --> 00:18:17.940 However, when the foreign goods reached American shores, the amount of tariff was added to 190 00:18:17.940 --> 00:18:22.480 the cost of the goods and had to be paid by the consumer, which was the south. 191 00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:25.540 Northern business saw that they could compete better with the foreign goods if they could 192 00:18:25.540 --> 00:18:31.180 make the tariff very high, which was called a, quote, protective tariff, end quote. 193 00:18:31.180 --> 00:18:35.820 Then they could price their goods just below the total cost of the goods added to the tax 194 00:18:35.820 --> 00:18:39.340 and make an excessive profit. 195 00:18:39.340 --> 00:18:44.700 Generally a tariff of under 10% was considered a revenue measure, and a tax of over 10% was 196 00:18:44.700 --> 00:18:48.620 generally considered a protective tax for industry. 197 00:18:48.620 --> 00:18:55.460 Now regardless of whether the South bought the foreign goods or the northern goods, the 198 00:18:55.460 --> 00:18:58.980 money ended up in the north, mainly because the north had the political power to bring 199 00:18:58.980 --> 00:19:04.580 the tax money back to be spent under the general welfare clause in the north for internal improvements. 200 00:19:04.580 --> 00:19:08.940 Of course the excessive profits also stayed in the north for the benefit of northern business. 201 00:19:08.940 --> 00:19:34.940 So this was a treacherous scheme that caused a large transfer of wealth from the South to the North that had been going on for some time but reached a crisis in 1828 when the higher protective tariff, which was called the tariff of abomination, led to secession and nullification, not to secession but the threat of secession and actual nullification in the state of South Carolina in 1832. 202 00:19:34.940 --> 00:19:43.940 So the tariff almost led to civil war at that point when President Andrew Jackson threatened to invade the South and specifically South Carolina. 203 00:19:43.940 --> 00:19:50.940 Henry Clay, one of the main instigators of this injustice, stepped in and tried to settle it and became known as the Great Pacificator. 204 00:19:50.940 --> 00:20:03.940 We finally had the Compromise of 1850, which included the agreement not to have another prohibitive tariff like the tariff of abomination. 205 00:20:03.940 --> 00:20:11.940 It's also important to note that much of the hard feelings and even hatred between the North and South that had occurred was over the issue of slavery. 206 00:20:11.940 --> 00:20:23.940 Abolitionists in the North advocated secession of the North from the South so that slavery could be abolished by not having to comply with the Fugitive Slave Law of the Constitution. 207 00:20:23.940 --> 00:20:31.940 And for that reason, the abolitionists were very unpopular in the North because they did not favor the secession of the North. 208 00:20:31.940 --> 00:20:38.940 The abolitionists also attacked the Constitution generally and stated it was a covenant with the devil because it protected slavery. 209 00:20:38.940 --> 00:20:53.940 The advocacy of secession made the abolitionists unpopular and for that reason Lincoln and the Whigs were very careful to avoid advocating the abolition of slavery and to be in any way connected with the abolitionists. 210 00:20:53.940 --> 00:20:58.940 The South made a strategic blunder in trying to promote the idea that slavery was good 211 00:20:58.940 --> 00:21:03.940 and cited the venerable authorities of Aristotle, Cicero and the Bible. 212 00:21:03.940 --> 00:21:07.940 And this then generated vitriolic comments from the North. 213 00:21:07.940 --> 00:21:11.940 The abolitionists not only advocated that slavery was evil, 214 00:21:11.940 --> 00:21:15.940 but that the Southerners were evil people for allowing it to remain. 215 00:21:15.940 --> 00:21:18.940 So you have these twin things going on. 216 00:21:18.940 --> 00:21:23.940 The issue of slavery creating the hatred between the two areas 217 00:21:23.940 --> 00:21:27.940 and the issue of the tariff creating economic exploitation. 218 00:21:27.940 --> 00:21:36.940 The South felt that the Constitution did protect slavery, but it did not protect them from the tariff. 219 00:21:36.940 --> 00:21:42.940 It was within the Union and under the Constitution that slavery was mainly protected. 220 00:21:42.940 --> 00:21:47.940 And the North did not have the political power to change the Constitution or to outlaw slavery, 221 00:21:47.940 --> 00:21:54.940 but they did have the political power in Congress to declare laws that raise the tariff to higher protective levels and to spend that revenue in the North. 222 00:21:54.940 --> 00:22:01.840 of the North. Therefore, the secession of the South placed slavery at risk, but secession 223 00:22:01.840 --> 00:22:07.260 protected the South from the higher or protective tariff. Finally, when the new Republican Party, 224 00:22:07.260 --> 00:22:11.640 which eventually got all of its votes in the North, stated in its platform that the Republican 225 00:22:11.640 --> 00:22:16.420 Party intended to pass a higher or protective tariff and to spend the money for internal 226 00:22:16.420 --> 00:22:21.820 improvements, which meant the North would help big business, then the South saw that 227 00:22:21.820 --> 00:22:27.280 that they had no hope within the Union. The platform did not advocate that the Republicans 228 00:22:27.280 --> 00:22:31.600 would try to abolish slavery. In the South, and Lincoln specifically claimed he did not 229 00:22:31.600 --> 00:22:35.880 want to abolish slavery. In the South, where it already existed, but merely keep it from 230 00:22:35.880 --> 00:22:41.520 spreading to the territories and new states. As the southern states began to secede in 231 00:22:41.520 --> 00:22:46.560 December of 1860, more and more power was left with the northern states, and by March 232 00:22:46.560 --> 00:22:52.800 In March of 1861, the Confederacy had been formed. On March 2, 1861, two days before 233 00:22:52.800 --> 00:22:58.280 Lincoln's inauguration, the Morrell Tariff was signed into law by President Buchanan. 234 00:22:58.280 --> 00:23:02.060 And within a year, it became the highest tax in American history, with the average being 235 00:23:02.060 --> 00:23:10.180 47 percent of the value of imported goods. However, the war did not start with secession. 236 00:23:10.180 --> 00:23:13.520 America was at peace when Abraham Lincoln took his oath of office two days later on 237 00:23:13.520 --> 00:23:19.120 on March 4, 1861 and promised he would not do anything to abolish slavery where it already 238 00:23:19.120 --> 00:23:25.360 existed. However, the South felt that he had declared war when he stated that he would 239 00:23:25.360 --> 00:23:30.320 use force or invasion to collect the tariff and to hold the forts, which were the enforcement 240 00:23:30.320 --> 00:23:36.320 means to collect the tax. The story of the firing of the first shot by the South is best 241 00:23:36.320 --> 00:23:42.520 understood by looking at two cabinet meetings held by the Lincoln administration. The first 242 00:23:42.520 --> 00:23:49.200 on March 15 and the 2nd on March 29 of 1861. Even though Lincoln had advocated in his inaugural 243 00:23:49.200 --> 00:23:54.340 address that he would use force and invasion to hold the forts and collect the taxes, on 244 00:23:54.340 --> 00:24:00.700 March 15 his cabinet heard the testimony of military leaders, especially General Scott, 245 00:24:00.700 --> 00:24:06.100 that the efforts to hold the forts would be a useless act since the forts could not be 246 00:24:06.100 --> 00:24:11.680 held for any appreciable time and therefore the taxes could not be collected. It would 247 00:24:11.680 --> 00:24:15.480 would be an act which would cause the South to fire the first shot and start the war. 248 00:24:15.480 --> 00:24:20.580 Therefore, the cabinet voted with only one dissent and recommended in writing to Lincoln 249 00:24:20.580 --> 00:24:22.040 that he abandon the forts. 250 00:24:22.040 --> 00:24:27.720 However, only a few weeks later on March 29, the cabinet voted with only two dissents for 251 00:24:27.720 --> 00:24:31.760 Lincoln to send food and reinforcements to Fort Sumter for the purpose of holding the 252 00:24:31.760 --> 00:24:32.760 forts. 253 00:24:32.760 --> 00:24:36.720 Therefore, it's critical to know what occurred that caused this change in the two cabinet 254 00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:39.200 votes in this month of March. 255 00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:45.200 The first thing that happened was a knowledge gained from the fact that Lincoln sent two delegates, 256 00:24:45.200 --> 00:24:50.200 Mr. Herbert and Mr. Lammon, to the South, and specifically to South Carolina, 257 00:24:50.200 --> 00:24:53.200 after the first vote on March 15, to investigate for him. 258 00:24:53.200 --> 00:25:01.200 They came back before the March 29 meeting and told him that if Lincoln even sent a ship carrying food, 259 00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:07.200 the South would fire the first shot because this would tell the South that Lincoln intended to hold the forts 260 00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:19.200 The second thing that occurred was that the South had adopted its constitution on March 11, which declared that it would never charge more than a 10 percent tariff on imported goods. 261 00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:27.200 The comparison of the two rates of tariff began to send shock waves throughout the Northern mercantile and banking interest. 262 00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:57.200 The comparison of the two rates of tariff began to send shockwaves throughout the Northern mercantile and banking interest. Foreign goods would no longer be coming to the North, but would be coming to Charleston and to New Orleans. The virtually free trade zone of the South would make the North an economic desert. The third thing that happened was a drastic change in the political positions of the business and economic interest in the North, but especially in New York, which was the main port. 263 00:25:57.200 --> 00:26:05.200 The merchant and banking interests there, which I'll simply call Wall Street, change their position drastically. 264 00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:12.200 There's a very interesting book on this subject of Wall Street and the Civil War, which is rarely cited in any Civil War history. 265 00:26:12.200 --> 00:26:20.200 It's gone under various names, but my copy is entitled Business and Slavery, The New York Merchants and the Irrepressible Conflict. 266 00:26:20.200 --> 00:26:25.200 The author is Philip S. Foner, and it was published in 1941. 267 00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:32.480 It tells the amazing story that Wall Street, prior to the Civil War, was economically and 268 00:26:32.480 --> 00:26:36.240 politically aligned with the rich southern plantation owners. 269 00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:40.080 Wall Street did their banking and they became personal friends and entered into various 270 00:26:40.080 --> 00:26:42.040 joint economic ventures. 271 00:26:42.040 --> 00:26:46.800 They were also basically in the same political party of the Democratic Party. 272 00:26:46.800 --> 00:26:54.020 Prior to the two taxes being passed by their respective governments, Wall Street had mobilized 273 00:26:54.020 --> 00:27:09.020 How many of you have ever heard that before or read that book? 274 00:27:09.020 --> 00:27:13.020 It's new to me, and Charles Adams is the one that had me read it. 275 00:27:13.020 --> 00:27:19.020 Unfortunately, I don't go into this in the reassessing of the present, but I do cite it in the pages you need to read. 276 00:27:19.020 --> 00:27:27.020 Prior to the tariff issue, many of the newspapers and the general population of the North simply told Lincoln, let the South go in peace. 277 00:27:27.020 --> 00:27:30.020 They did not want to use force to bring the South back in. 278 00:27:30.020 --> 00:27:39.020 So it was a safe thing for Wall Street to decide to go with the South, because they foresaw no war about it. 279 00:27:39.020 --> 00:27:45.020 The only people advocating war openly were the radical Republicans, who were not really Lincoln supporters. 280 00:27:45.020 --> 00:28:01.020 However, when the reality of the contrast and the two tariffs sank in and the business and political interest throughout the North began to demand that Lincoln go to war and stop this free trade zone, it became evident that there would be a possibility of a war. 281 00:28:01.020 --> 00:28:10.020 And Wall Street began to realize that if they did not secede and they were part of the North, then they would become part of this economic desert due to the free trade zone. 282 00:28:10.020 --> 00:28:22.020 So they had previously promised their support to Jefferson Davis and they switched completely 180 degrees and began to demand that Lincoln go to war. 283 00:28:22.020 --> 00:28:31.020 Charles Adams has some cartoons in some of his tax books and it shows the Wall Street gang bringing the sacks of money to Lincoln and demanding that he go to war. 284 00:28:31.020 --> 00:28:36.020 And these were the previous supporters of the idea of secession and Jefferson Davis. 285 00:28:36.020 --> 00:28:46.020 This was the key economic support that Lincoln needed when Wall Street switched to the war position and support of Lincoln. 286 00:28:46.020 --> 00:28:56.020 When the cabinet voted again on March 29, Wall Street and the economic interests of the North had joined Lincoln's camp and demanded war. 287 00:28:56.020 --> 00:29:01.020 The cabinet, with only two dissenting votes, voted to hold the forts, including Fort Sumter. 288 00:29:01.020 --> 00:29:08.020 Now, Lincoln may be the most astute politician ever to be president, which is not a compliment. 289 00:29:08.020 --> 00:29:11.660 He was an astute politician, but he was not a great president. 290 00:29:11.660 --> 00:29:15.740 In fact, he, along with Franklin Roosevelt, in my opinion, as stated in the book, Reassessing 291 00:29:15.740 --> 00:29:19.140 the Presidents, are two worst presidents. 292 00:29:19.140 --> 00:29:23.740 But Lincoln knew that he could not gain the support of the North if he started the war. 293 00:29:23.740 --> 00:29:27.260 He recognized that the South would have to fire the first shot. 294 00:29:27.260 --> 00:29:33.100 So Lincoln devised a plan and he started with the information from Herbert and Lammon that 295 00:29:33.100 --> 00:29:38.540 the South would fire even on a ship bringing food. Major Anderson at Fort Sumter had plenty 296 00:29:38.540 --> 00:29:42.780 of food because he had an agreement with the Charleston merchants for the supply of fresh 297 00:29:42.780 --> 00:29:50.260 meat and vegetables on a daily basis and supplies were not cut off until after Lincoln made 298 00:29:50.260 --> 00:29:54.900 his plans and the South discovered that he was not only sending a ship with food but 299 00:29:54.900 --> 00:30:20.900 Lincoln announced to the public that he was only sending food to the, quote, starving Garrison, but the South knew that the Garrison had plenty of food and he was sending armed forces and therefore had repudiated his promise given through Secretary of State Seward that he was going to abandon Sumter. 300 00:30:20.900 --> 00:30:25.140 There are several smoking guns which tell us about the secret plan of Lincoln, but the 301 00:30:25.140 --> 00:30:29.700 best is contained in the diary of his good friend and political ally, Sumter Orville 302 00:30:29.700 --> 00:30:32.580 Browning of Illinois. 303 00:30:32.580 --> 00:30:39.660 When Fort Sumter was fired on, Lincoln issued an order for Congress to meet on July 4, 1861, 304 00:30:39.660 --> 00:30:45.340 by giving him two and a half months to carry out his dictatorial plan to subdue the South 305 00:30:45.340 --> 00:30:48.540 without any congressional approval. 306 00:30:48.540 --> 00:30:54.100 So on July 3, 1861, his close friend, Senator Browning, arrived in Washington and had a 307 00:30:54.100 --> 00:30:57.540 private meeting with his friend, President Lincoln, to hear the speech that Lincoln was 308 00:30:57.540 --> 00:31:00.340 going to give the next day to Congress. 309 00:31:00.340 --> 00:31:04.940 While Lincoln had the utmost trust in Senator Browning, he did not know that Browning kept 310 00:31:04.940 --> 00:31:06.980 a meticulous diary. 311 00:31:06.980 --> 00:31:11.540 And after Lincoln read the speech to be given to Congress the next day, he told Senator 312 00:31:11.540 --> 00:31:16.360 Browning about how he had planned for the South to be perceived as starting the war 313 00:31:16.360 --> 00:31:19.200 by firing the first shot at Fort Sumter. 314 00:31:19.200 --> 00:31:23.800 When leaving the White House that night, Senator Browning went immediately to his hotel room 315 00:31:23.800 --> 00:31:29.640 and recorded the conversation in his diary, and this is what it states, quote, 316 00:31:29.640 --> 00:31:34.000 He, meaning Lincoln, told me that the very first thing placed in his hands after his 317 00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:39.160 inauguration was a letter from Major Anderson announcing the impossibility of defending 318 00:31:39.160 --> 00:31:45.320 or resupplying Sumter, that he called the cabinet together and consulted General Scott, 319 00:31:45.320 --> 00:31:49.800 Scott concurred with Anderson, and the Cabinet, with the exception of Postmaster General Blair, 320 00:31:49.800 --> 00:31:54.080 were for evacuating the fort, and all the troubles and anxieties of his life had not 321 00:31:54.080 --> 00:32:01.120 equaled those which intervened between this time and the fall of Sumter. 322 00:32:01.120 --> 00:32:06.480 Still quoting the diary, he himself conceived the idea and proposed sending supplies without 323 00:32:06.480 --> 00:32:12.240 an attempt to reinforce, giving notice of the fact to Governor Pickens of South Carolina. 324 00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:17.400 And then here's the key phrase, quote, the plan succeeded. 325 00:32:17.400 --> 00:32:23.600 They attacked something, it fell, and thus did more service than it otherwise could, 326 00:32:23.600 --> 00:32:24.600 end quote. 327 00:32:24.600 --> 00:32:31.240 Now if the plan was to bring food to the starving Garrison, that plan failed because the ship 328 00:32:31.240 --> 00:32:36.300 never came close to the shore and the warships never came in. 329 00:32:36.300 --> 00:32:41.800 But if the plan was to get the South to fire the first shot, then certainly the plan did 330 00:32:41.800 --> 00:32:48.800 To indulge in some counterfactual history, I believe that if Lincoln had not sent the ship, I believe there would have been no war. 331 00:32:48.800 --> 00:32:53.800 If the South had been allowed to secede peacefully, I believe that slavery would have gradually disappeared 332 00:32:53.800 --> 00:32:58.800 due to the fact there was no fugitive slave clause to be enforced against runaway slaves. 333 00:32:58.800 --> 00:33:03.800 Further, the Industrial Revolution was making slavery a thing of the past throughout the world, 334 00:33:03.800 --> 00:33:06.800 and this would have happened to the South eventually. 335 00:33:06.800 --> 00:33:16.800 and this would have happened to the South eventually. The South would have maintained a decentralized type of government, preserved the ideas of the founders against a strong centralized government. 336 00:33:16.800 --> 00:33:29.800 America would not have been converted into a monolithic centralized government through the war. I believe American history would be much better for freedom if Lincoln had not provoked the South into firing the first shot. 337 00:33:29.800 --> 00:33:41.800 Now let's go to Pearl Harbor. This is the next patriotic political myth, which is taught as recently as the current movie on Pearl Harbor. 338 00:33:41.800 --> 00:33:48.800 In our new book, published by the Mises Institute, entitled Reassessing the Presidents, I contribute two chapters. 339 00:33:48.800 --> 00:33:52.800 One is the story of Fort Sumter and the other the story of Pearl Harbor. 340 00:33:52.800 --> 00:34:04.800 and I go into much more detail but however there are three fairly recent events in regard to Pearl Harbor I'd like to highlight in telling you the Pearl Harbor story. 341 00:34:04.800 --> 00:34:12.800 The first is a resolution adopted by the U.S. Senate in May of 1999 in regard to Pearl Harbor. 342 00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:19.520 There had been a previous Congressional investigation of Pearl Harbor in 1945 and 1946, which came 343 00:34:19.520 --> 00:34:24.440 to the conclusion by the Majority Report of the Democrats that Pearl Harbor Commanders 344 00:34:24.440 --> 00:34:28.560 Admiral Kimmel and General Short should be blamed for Pearl Harbor. 345 00:34:28.560 --> 00:34:35.720 Their ranks were reduced, they were made the scapegoats and dismissed from the service. 346 00:34:35.720 --> 00:34:40.640 The Republicans in their Minority Report in 1946 blamed Roosevelt and Marshall for the 347 00:34:40.640 --> 00:34:42.720 Pearl Harbor debacle. 348 00:34:42.720 --> 00:34:47.020 Since that time, Admiral Kimmel and General Shorty both died, but their families have 349 00:34:47.020 --> 00:34:51.420 tried to correct this injustice, and so the U.S. Senate agreed to make a new investigation 350 00:34:51.420 --> 00:34:59.200 of Pearl Harbor. A bipartisan resolution adopted by the U.S. Senate in May of 1999 posthumously 351 00:34:59.200 --> 00:35:04.000 restores the full rank of these two officers and declares that both men perform their duties 352 00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:09.260 competently and professionally. Further, this bipartisan resolution states that the surprise 353 00:35:09.260 --> 00:35:13.820 The Mises attack was not the result of the dereliction and the performance of their duties, 354 00:35:13.820 --> 00:35:19.540 but was caused by withholding critical information that was available in Washington DC that foretold 355 00:35:19.540 --> 00:35:21.340 of the war with Japan. 356 00:35:21.340 --> 00:35:24.380 But this information was withheld from the commanders. 357 00:35:24.380 --> 00:35:28.580 This resolution puts the blame squarely on Roosevelt and his advisors in Washington for 358 00:35:28.580 --> 00:35:31.100 bringing America into the war. 359 00:35:31.100 --> 00:35:36.220 The second new development grew out of the publicity of this Senate hearing and resulted 360 00:35:36.220 --> 00:35:41.600 in a letter being written by Mrs. Helen E. Hammond to President Clinton, stating that 361 00:35:41.600 --> 00:35:47.260 she learned that the families of Admiral Kimmel and General Short were trying to clear their 362 00:35:47.260 --> 00:35:50.380 names in regard to the Pearl Harbor matter. 363 00:35:50.380 --> 00:35:55.540 She felt compelled to reveal the confession that her father had made to her before his 364 00:35:55.540 --> 00:35:56.540 death. 365 00:35:56.540 --> 00:36:01.740 Her father was a Mr. Don C. Smith who died in 1990 at the age of 98. 366 00:36:01.740 --> 00:36:06.620 He told her back in the 1970s that he had worried for many years about the fact that 367 00:36:06.620 --> 00:36:11.260 a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and while he held the position of Director 368 00:36:11.260 --> 00:36:16.140 of War Service with American Red Cross, he was summoned to the White House for a private 369 00:36:16.140 --> 00:36:18.900 confidential meeting with President Roosevelt. 370 00:36:18.900 --> 00:36:22.460 In this meeting, President Roosevelt revealed to her father that his intelligence staff 371 00:36:22.460 --> 00:36:27.580 had warned Roosevelt of an impending attack by the Japanese, and Roosevelt anticipated 372 00:36:27.580 --> 00:36:31.720 it would cause many deaths, injuries and damages. 373 00:36:31.720 --> 00:36:35.640 Roosevelt instructed her father to send numerous Red Cross workers and massive supplies to 374 00:36:35.640 --> 00:36:39.360 a holding area on the west coast where they would be delivered by the military to the 375 00:36:39.360 --> 00:36:41.720 proper location. 376 00:36:41.720 --> 00:36:47.520 Ms. Hammond reported further that her father protested to the President about keeping this 377 00:36:47.520 --> 00:36:52.160 a secret from the American people and the military personnel to be attacked. 378 00:36:52.160 --> 00:36:56.360 Roosevelt told him that the American people would never agree to enter the war in Europe 379 00:36:56.360 --> 00:36:59.440 unless they were attacked within their own borders. 380 00:36:59.440 --> 00:37:02.940 Mrs. Hammond further reported that her father reluctantly followed the orders of the President 381 00:37:02.940 --> 00:37:07.960 and spent the rest of his life feeling that he was morally and ethically wrong to have 382 00:37:07.960 --> 00:37:12.320 participated in this deceit and deception upon the American people and the servicemen 383 00:37:12.320 --> 00:37:17.480 at Pearl Harbor where nearly 3,000 lost their lives and thousands more were injured and 384 00:37:17.480 --> 00:37:21.640 massive destruction of the Pacific fleet was inflicted. 385 00:37:21.640 --> 00:37:25.440 Subsequent investigation of Mrs. Hammond's allegations have shown that it is correct 386 00:37:25.440 --> 00:37:31.320 that the Red Cross did transfer substantial personnel and supplies to the West Coast which 387 00:37:31.320 --> 00:37:35.680 was then transferred to Pearl Harbor just prior to the attack. 388 00:37:35.680 --> 00:37:39.800 This shows that not only did Roosevelt know when and where the Japanese would attack, 389 00:37:39.800 --> 00:37:45.800 but he knew specifically it would be at Pearl Harbor because that's where he sent the supplies. 390 00:37:45.800 --> 00:37:51.140 And the third development is the most dramatic and sensational, and this is the publication 391 00:37:51.140 --> 00:37:58.120 of a book written by Robert Stinnett entitled Day of Deceit, The Truth about FDR and Pearl 392 00:37:58.120 --> 00:38:05.280 Harbor. It was published in 1999 and the author was an officer in the American Navy stationed 393 00:38:05.280 --> 00:38:11.300 in the Pacific during the war. He spent 17 years researching this extremely important 394 00:38:11.300 --> 00:38:16.560 book and he dedicated it to the late congressman John Moss of California who was the author 395 00:38:16.560 --> 00:38:22.320 of the Freedom of Information Act. Stinnett used this act to gain access to over 200,000 396 00:38:22.320 --> 00:38:26.700 documents, and he used these documents in numerous interviews to turn up conclusive 397 00:38:26.700 --> 00:38:31.220 evidence about Roosevelt's deceitful activity. I'm going to tell you about three of those 398 00:38:31.220 --> 00:38:32.220 developments. 399 00:38:32.220 --> 00:38:36.660 First, in regard to the provocation of the Japanese to fire the first shot, Stinnett 400 00:38:36.660 --> 00:38:41.160 found a critical document in the files of Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum, who 401 00:38:41.160 --> 00:38:46.440 Macaulay, who was born in Japan to American Baptist missionaries. Macaulay grew up in 402 00:38:46.440 --> 00:38:51.000 Japan learning their language, their culture and their politics, and then came to America 403 00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:55.960 and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. Macaulay became the key resource person for 404 00:38:55.960 --> 00:39:00.960 Roosevelt in regard to the provocation of Japan. Roosevelt specifically requested that 405 00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:04.920 Macaulay prepare a document which would show Roosevelt how to provoke the Japanese into 406 00:39:04.920 --> 00:39:09.760 firing the first shot. We don't know when this document was actually prepared or first 407 00:39:09.760 --> 00:39:26.760 was discussed with Roosevelt, but there's a record, and we do know, that they privately met in the White House on October 7, 1940, McCollum and Roosevelt, over one year before Pearl Harbor, and discussed the eight steps that McCollum had recommended, some of which had already taken place by that time. 408 00:39:26.760 --> 00:39:36.760 These eight steps included moving the Pacific Fleet from its normal base at San Diego to Pearl Harbor, which was known by the naval personnel to put it at great risk for attack. 409 00:39:36.760 --> 00:39:37.760 Act. 410 00:39:37.760 --> 00:39:41.160 The document further recommends that Roosevelt worked with the Dutch and the British to cut 411 00:39:41.160 --> 00:39:46.560 off all oil supplies to the Japanese and worked with the British to place an embargo on all 412 00:39:46.560 --> 00:39:52.400 trade to Japan, which would force them to attack in order to relieve these restraints. 413 00:39:52.400 --> 00:39:57.600 We now know that Roosevelt followed the advice and carried out all eight steps. 414 00:39:57.600 --> 00:40:03.480 The second startling revelation in Stinnett's book is that it reveals for the first time 415 00:40:03.480 --> 00:40:07.920 that not only was the diplomatic code of the Japanese broken by the Americans before Pearl 416 00:40:07.920 --> 00:40:13.320 Harbor but also the military code was broken. The American code breakers were listening 417 00:40:13.320 --> 00:40:19.620 to all the military commands which occurred before Pearl Harbor and relaying these translated 418 00:40:19.620 --> 00:40:25.840 messages directly to Washington D.C. But the commanders at Pearl Harbor never got the slightest 419 00:40:25.840 --> 00:40:30.360 bit of this information about the military commands. The book shows that these radio 420 00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:35.360 The radio intercepts had location finders, which allowed the code breakers to determine 421 00:40:35.360 --> 00:40:40.680 the exact location of the Japanese fleet, which left Japanese waters on November 25, 422 00:40:40.680 --> 00:40:44.840 1941, headed for Pearl Harbor. The code breakers followed their progress through the North 423 00:40:44.840 --> 00:40:50.360 Pacific and all the way up to the point when they launched their attack on Pearl Harbor. 424 00:40:50.360 --> 00:40:55.040 When both the location and the destination of the Japanese fleet were determined, an 425 00:40:55.040 --> 00:41:01.260 An order came from Washington D.C. called the, quote, Vacant Sea Order, and this removed 426 00:41:01.260 --> 00:41:05.940 all American commercial and military traffic from the North Pacific Ocean for the purpose 427 00:41:05.940 --> 00:41:11.320 of letting the Japanese forces have an unobserved, unobstructed path to Pearl Harbor. 428 00:41:11.320 --> 00:41:16.000 Stinnett's book shows that without White House knowledge or approval, Admiral Kimmel in Pearl 429 00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:21.560 Harbor had ordered a substantial portion of his fleet to move into an area north of Pearl 430 00:41:21.560 --> 00:41:26.000 in Pearl Harbor, two weeks before Pearl Harbor. In fact, he went to the very area where the 431 00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:35.480 launch was eventually made by the Japanese. Upon discovery of this maneuver of Kimmel 432 00:41:35.480 --> 00:41:40.020 back in Washington, orders came directly from Washington for Kimmel to return immediate 433 00:41:40.020 --> 00:41:46.820 to Pearl Harbor and not to send any more surveillance out in that direction. Senate rightfully concludes 434 00:41:46.820 --> 00:42:03.820 In his book he reads that obviously Roosevelt did not want to risk an open sea battle and would prefer a surprise attack on American forces on American soil, which would so inflame the American people that they would become united and bring them into war with the righteous vengeance just as had been done by the firing on Fort Sumter. 435 00:42:03.820 --> 00:42:14.820 And finally, in Senate's book, we read about the cover-up orders, and it shows the first order was issued on December 11, 1941, four days after Pearl Harbor, 436 00:42:14.820 --> 00:42:23.820 telling all military personnel to destroy their documents and not to talk with anyone concerning their knowledge of the intercepts, especially the military code intercepts. 437 00:42:23.820 --> 00:42:30.820 Immediately after the war, and when no reason existed to keep the military secret that the Japanese military code had been broken, 438 00:42:30.820 --> 00:42:36.120 was broken. Admiral King issued orders to all code breakers and the intelligence personnel 439 00:42:36.120 --> 00:42:39.740 that they would be imprisoned and all their Navy and government benefits would be cut 440 00:42:39.740 --> 00:42:44.940 off if any of them revealed anything about the military code intercepts. This order was 441 00:42:44.940 --> 00:42:53.820 issued just prior to the congressional hearings in 1945. All witnesses since 1945 have testified 442 00:42:53.820 --> 00:42:58.200 under oath that the military code had not been broken and that the military information 443 00:42:58.200 --> 00:43:03.600 had not been intercepted from the Japanese. If ever there was any reason to doubt that 444 00:43:03.600 --> 00:43:08.760 Roosevelt lied us into the war, first by provoking the Japanese to fire the first shot, then 445 00:43:08.760 --> 00:43:14.140 by withholding the critical information from the Pearl Harbor commanders, and then by covering 446 00:43:14.140 --> 00:43:20.760 all of this up, this book settles that issue. However, there's one disturbing part of Stenett's 447 00:43:20.760 --> 00:43:26.060 book which you'll find at page 259 in the epilogue. He states that as horrible as it 448 00:43:26.060 --> 00:43:31.500 It may seem to the families and to the veterans of the war that Roosevelt did this. 449 00:43:31.500 --> 00:43:36.200 Stenitz said that it must be recognized that there was a greater evil to stop. 450 00:43:36.200 --> 00:43:40.100 The Nazi invaders in Europe had begun the Holocaust and were poised to invade England, 451 00:43:40.100 --> 00:43:41.100 he says. 452 00:43:41.100 --> 00:43:45.680 There were also powerful isolationist forces, Stenitz said, which prevented Roosevelt from 453 00:43:45.680 --> 00:43:48.300 getting into the European war. 454 00:43:48.300 --> 00:43:51.820 I believe this is the only defense now left to Roosevelt and his supporters, which is 455 00:43:51.820 --> 00:44:16.820 Professor Thomas A. Bailey, a Stanford University historian, wrote a book in 1948 following the Congressional investigation of 45-46, which made this claim explicitly. 456 00:44:16.820 --> 00:44:25.820 Bailey asserts that there might be a veil in the defense, that the end justifies the means, and states that Roosevelt had a moral right to lie to the American citizens. 457 00:44:25.820 --> 00:44:28.820 And I'll quote a portion of Bailey's book. 458 00:44:46.820 --> 00:45:10.160 If you adopt Machiavelli's advice that the end justifies the means, then you must pursue 459 00:45:10.160 --> 00:45:16.640 the next question, and that is, what was the real end that Roosevelt sought? 460 00:45:16.640 --> 00:45:20.640 Most defenders have said that he had to use the back door of Japan in order to fight the 461 00:45:20.640 --> 00:45:25.900 war with Germany, because Germany was a dangerous tyranny and a threat to America. However, 462 00:45:25.900 --> 00:45:31.360 in December of 1941, Germany and Russia were already at war, and at that time the evidence 463 00:45:31.360 --> 00:45:35.880 was clear that Soviet Russia was the greatest tyranny the world had ever known. In order 464 00:45:35.880 --> 00:45:41.400 to fight Germany, we would have to be an ally of Soviet Russia. Stalin had already proved 465 00:45:41.400 --> 00:45:45.740 to be the most horrible murderer ever known in history. At that time, it was known in 466 00:45:45.740 --> 00:45:50.380 in Washington that he had already murdered over 10 million of his own people through 467 00:45:50.380 --> 00:45:56.740 the reign of terror and starvation from the period of 1929 to 1939. Now since the archives 468 00:45:56.740 --> 00:46:02.700 have been opened, we know that that figure is 20 million. By 1939, Hitler had only killed 469 00:46:02.700 --> 00:46:06.940 about a hundred, less than a hundred of his own people, mainly through the purge of his 470 00:46:06.940 --> 00:46:12.940 own troops. So this was the stark comparison and contrast between Stalin and Hitler as 471 00:46:12.940 --> 00:46:17.300 As they were known in 1939 through 1941. 472 00:46:17.300 --> 00:46:21.180 Even after the war ended, Stalin was still ranked as the number one murderer in the world 473 00:46:21.180 --> 00:46:22.180 history. 474 00:46:22.180 --> 00:46:26.820 And number two was another communist dictator, Mayo of China. 475 00:46:26.820 --> 00:46:32.500 Communism as a worldwide movement murdered over 100 million of its own citizens. 476 00:46:32.500 --> 00:46:38.140 This is not wartime soldiers' deaths, this is citizens killed by their own governments. 477 00:46:38.140 --> 00:46:50.140 Furthermore, Soviet Communism advocated a world revolution by uniting the workers of the world, including the workers in America and Great Britain, to abolish all capitalistic systems and to abolish all private property. 478 00:46:50.140 --> 00:47:05.140 Fascism was instituted in Italy by Mussolini in 1922 as an anti-communist movement that advocated a strong centralized government which allowed private property, but industry was to be joined with government as a partner under strict controls and regulations. 479 00:47:05.140 --> 00:47:10.980 An excellent example of the economic structure of fascism was Roosevelt's New Deal, but 480 00:47:10.980 --> 00:47:15.420 of course Roosevelt's policy was definitely not anti-communist. 481 00:47:15.420 --> 00:47:19.980 Hitler's fascism also was anti-communist, but he added a new factor, anti-Semitism. 482 00:47:19.980 --> 00:47:26.060 However, Hitler advocated a peaceful coexistence with America and the British Empire. 483 00:47:26.060 --> 00:47:29.300 Hitler greatly admired the British Empire and even offered to enter into a permanent 484 00:47:29.300 --> 00:47:31.420 alliance with them. 485 00:47:31.420 --> 00:47:36.300 The only war Hitler advocated was the war against communism in Soviet Russia for more 486 00:47:36.300 --> 00:47:39.220 living space for Germans in the East. 487 00:47:39.220 --> 00:47:45.300 We now know from the Russian archives that Stalin had planned to attack Germany in July 488 00:47:45.300 --> 00:47:49.740 or August of 1941, but he was beat to the punch by Hitler's invasion of Russia in June 489 00:47:49.740 --> 00:47:54.260 of 1941, a war Hitler had always promised, and Stalin knew it was coming, but he didn't 490 00:47:54.260 --> 00:47:56.980 know it would be in June of 1941. 491 00:47:56.980 --> 00:48:10.980 Furthermore, Winston Churchill admitted in a conversation with Stalin that occurred in 1944, that back in 1940, Churchill could have made a very favorable peace treaty with Hitler that would have completely protected the British Empire. 492 00:48:10.980 --> 00:48:16.980 Here's what Churchill told Stalin in 1944, about 1940. 493 00:48:16.980 --> 00:48:28.980 We never thought of making a separate peace even in the year we were all alone and easily could have made one without serious loss to the British Empire and largely at your, meaning Stalin's, expense. 494 00:48:28.980 --> 00:48:37.980 Of course, Churchill refused to make a peace treaty because he knew that he had Roosevelt's secret guarantee that Roosevelt would bring America into the war through some means or method. 495 00:48:37.980 --> 00:48:47.980 Many American statesmen at the time of America's entry in the war stated that the cause of freedom and the opposition to tyranny would have been served far better by staying out of the war. 496 00:48:47.980 --> 00:48:56.980 This is a conclusion also reached by military expert Hanson Baldwin in his book called Great Mistakes of the War published in 1949, and he states, quote, 497 00:48:56.980 --> 00:49:02.700 There is no doubt whatsoever that it would have been in the interest of Britain and the 498 00:49:02.700 --> 00:49:08.060 United States and the world to have allowed, indeed to have encouraged, the world's two 499 00:49:08.060 --> 00:49:13.280 great dictatorships to fight each other to a frazzle. Such a struggle, with its resultant 500 00:49:13.280 --> 00:49:18.900 weakening of both communism and Nazism, could not but have aided in the establishment of 501 00:49:18.900 --> 00:49:26.200 a more stable peace. There were many political leaders, diplomats and even the Pope who warned 502 00:49:26.200 --> 00:49:35.200 I believe that if the Polish-German war became a European war, which brought in the British Empire, that the only beneficiary would be communism, especially Soviet Russia. 503 00:49:35.200 --> 00:49:42.200 I believe Senate's statement attempting to justify Roosevelt's actions to fight tyranny of Germany is a wrong interpretation of history, 504 00:49:42.200 --> 00:49:47.200 and that Soviet Russia was a much greater threat to America than was Nazi Germany. 505 00:49:47.200 --> 00:49:55.200 For 50 years after the end of the war in 1945, the Cold War continued with communism and it became a hot war in Korea and Vietnam, 506 00:49:55.200 --> 00:50:01.200 and finally there was the nuclear showdown with Soviet Russia over the Cuban Missile Crisis. 507 00:50:01.200 --> 00:50:08.200 For further support that the main threat was Communism, I recommend numerous books by Robert Conquest 508 00:50:08.200 --> 00:50:12.200 and especially his new book entitled This Ravaged Century. 509 00:50:12.200 --> 00:50:18.200 Also see the new book entitled The Black Book of Communism with articles by many French intellectuals 510 00:50:18.200 --> 00:50:23.200 who endorsed Communism at one time and are now totally against it as they see the horrible effects 511 00:50:23.200 --> 00:50:26.200 and the success that it had in the 20th century. 512 00:50:26.200 --> 00:50:34.200 However, it's my personal opinion that one of the main reasons FDR wanted America into the war was his private agenda, 513 00:50:34.200 --> 00:50:38.200 which was the same private agenda that Woodrow Wilson had. 514 00:50:38.200 --> 00:50:44.200 Woodrow Wilson was Roosevelt's idol and his mentor, and Roosevelt wanted to succeed where Wilson had failed. 515 00:50:44.200 --> 00:50:51.200 Wilson had an unrealistic but an idealistic dream and imagined that he could be the most important man the world had ever known 516 00:50:51.200 --> 00:50:55.120 We could create a worldwide organization such as the League of Nations and bring peace to 517 00:50:55.120 --> 00:51:00.600 the world and eliminate war forever, but Wilson's dream could only be realized if America entered 518 00:51:00.600 --> 00:51:04.520 the European war and helped dictate its post-war settlement. 519 00:51:04.520 --> 00:51:08.300 And this was one of the main reasons Wilson wanted America into that war. 520 00:51:08.300 --> 00:51:13.040 When Wilson failed to get America to join the League of Nations, his dream ended. 521 00:51:13.040 --> 00:51:17.040 President Roosevelt served in the Wilson administration and was the vice presidential candidate along 522 00:51:17.040 --> 00:51:20.440 with Cox for president in 1920. 523 00:51:20.440 --> 00:51:25.640 and Roosevelt made over 800 speeches in favor of Wilson's League of Nations. In a recent 524 00:51:25.640 --> 00:51:33.640 book praising Roosevelt entitled FDR and Creation of the UN by Hoops and Brinkley, they point 525 00:51:33.640 --> 00:51:37.480 out that Wilson's ghost was always at the side of Roosevelt and that even before Pearl 526 00:51:37.480 --> 00:51:42.200 Harbor, Roosevelt met with Churchill at the Atlantic Charter meeting in August of 1941 527 00:51:42.200 --> 00:51:47.400 to propose the United Nations idea to Churchill. Roosevelt wanted an international organization 528 00:51:47.400 --> 00:51:53.000 with a police force, with the four policemen being America, Great Britain, Russia and China 529 00:51:53.000 --> 00:51:54.840 to enforce the peace. 530 00:51:54.840 --> 00:51:58.960 Churchill was very much opposed to a centralized world organization and stated he could only 531 00:51:58.960 --> 00:52:02.680 support regional organizations with spheres of influence. 532 00:52:02.680 --> 00:52:06.680 Nevertheless, the book points out that within three weeks after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt 533 00:52:06.680 --> 00:52:12.840 held a meeting in Washington wherein representatives of Soviet Russia, China, Great Britain and 534 00:52:12.840 --> 00:52:16.960 America signed what was called the United Nations Agreement. 535 00:52:16.960 --> 00:52:31.280 Roosevelt spent the entire war trying to convince Stalin about his idea of the United Nations. 536 00:52:31.280 --> 00:52:36.800 When Roosevelt and Stalin first met face to face in 1943 at the Tehran Conference, Roosevelt 537 00:52:36.800 --> 00:52:41.000 gave Stalin the details of this centralized UN organization with an international police 538 00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:46.440 force and Stalin voiced the same objections as Churchill and further objected to China 539 00:52:46.440 --> 00:52:54.280 Roosevelt used the Lin-Lease Act to give vast war materials, weapons and money to Stalin 540 00:52:54.280 --> 00:52:58.440 and gave him everything he wanted in an effort to get Stalin to agree first to Roosevelt's 541 00:52:58.440 --> 00:53:03.640 concept of the United Nations and secondly to get Stalin to agree to enter the war against 542 00:53:03.640 --> 00:53:08.040 Japan in the Pacific once Germany was defeated. 543 00:53:08.040 --> 00:53:12.500 Roosevelt helped to build Soviet Russia into a massive superpower and he seemed to have 544 00:53:12.500 --> 00:53:16.820 have little interest in what happened in Europe as a result of creating this monster, all 545 00:53:16.820 --> 00:53:19.780 of which was demonstrated at the Alta Conference. 546 00:53:19.780 --> 00:53:23.700 If you look at the end result of World War II, or really what was phase II of World War 547 00:53:23.700 --> 00:53:29.420 I, it's clear that communism and Soviet Russia were the big winners by protecting and enhancing 548 00:53:29.420 --> 00:53:34.900 communism in Russia and eliminating its main enemies of Germany, Japan and Italy. 549 00:53:34.900 --> 00:53:39.540 The war further allowed the evil empire of communism to spread into Europe and to take 550 00:53:39.540 --> 00:53:43.820 Take over the entire nation of China, which also made it a threat to world peace. 551 00:53:43.820 --> 00:53:47.860 The British Empire and France were reduced to second-rate powers, and America entered 552 00:53:47.860 --> 00:53:53.000 the dangerous and ill-advised role of being the world policeman with a permanent garrison 553 00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:59.860 state imposed under an avalanche of taxes over the last 50 years, and our armed forces 554 00:53:59.860 --> 00:54:01.620 are still in Europe. 555 00:54:01.620 --> 00:54:05.380 So in looking back at what drove Roosevelt to war, the alleged tyranny of Germany, or 556 00:54:05.380 --> 00:54:10.700 The Creation of the U.N. I consider these hardly justifiable ends and reasons for America 557 00:54:10.700 --> 00:54:18.540 entering phase two of World War I. The American policy of isolationism and non-interventionism 558 00:54:18.540 --> 00:54:24.140 is not what caused the war to end in the 20th century, but it is the policy of interventionism 559 00:54:24.140 --> 00:54:28.700 which caused World War I and phase two of that war to be the great tragedies of the 560 00:54:28.700 --> 00:54:29.700 20th century. 561 00:54:29.700 --> 00:54:35.060 In conclusion, I state that the American Civil War and World War II as well as America's 562 00:54:35.060 --> 00:54:40.140 entry into World War II were unnecessary and these were not inevitable events. 563 00:54:40.140 --> 00:54:44.340 In our book, The Cost of War, America's Period Victories, the theme is that contrary to the 564 00:54:44.340 --> 00:54:50.220 patriotic political myths which are called history, these were not noble and great wars. 565 00:54:50.220 --> 00:54:54.700 By winning these wars, American freedom has been diminished primarily by the enlargement 566 00:54:54.700 --> 00:54:59.300 and centralization of power into the federal government and the ending of our non-interventionist 567 00:54:59.300 --> 00:55:29.300 The American government could have avoided each war if their respective presidents had sought peace rather than actually seeking war. However, in each case, the president had a political agenda and needed a war to accomplish that agenda. Neither could afford to be perceived as starting a war and therefore they needed to maneuver the alleged enemy into firing the first shot so the American people would not know the truth. In our new book, Reassessing the Presidency, I go into much more detail. 568 00:55:29.300 --> 00:55:30.980 about these two wars. 569 00:55:30.980 --> 00:55:34.540 And this is just a brief preview of what is given in more detail there. 570 00:55:34.540 --> 00:55:37.620 But the theme of that book is basically that the office of the President of the United 571 00:55:37.620 --> 00:55:42.780 States has been elevated in power to that of the imperial presidency and far beyond 572 00:55:42.780 --> 00:55:45.060 what was intended by the founders. 573 00:55:45.060 --> 00:55:48.140 This has been one of the main reasons that America has become the world policeman. 574 00:55:48.140 --> 00:55:53.460 And if America is to avoid the disasters of other nations and empires of the past, we 575 00:55:53.460 --> 00:55:56.060 must learn the truth about our history. 576 00:55:56.060 --> 00:55:59.760 We must adopt political policies that reduce the power of the Presidency and reduce the 577 00:55:59.760 --> 00:56:02.380 power of the Federal Government. 578 00:56:02.380 --> 00:56:07.740 We must restore the free market and the non-interventionist foreign policy. 579 00:56:07.740 --> 00:56:12.480 Ludwig von Mises teaches that the best way to avoid war is to reduce the size of government 580 00:56:12.480 --> 00:56:17.140 and to separate government from the economy so that economic forces are not allowed to 581 00:56:17.140 --> 00:56:19.260 use the government to get into wars. 582 00:56:19.260 --> 00:56:26.260 Mises further advocated free trade throughout the world without tariff barriers. 583 00:56:26.260 --> 00:56:30.980 If we learn the truth about our history, instead of believing the patriotic political myths 584 00:56:30.980 --> 00:56:35.520 that have been created, we will be in a better position not to repeat the mistakes of the 585 00:56:35.520 --> 00:56:36.520 past.