WEBVTT NOTE How Wars Endanger American Freedom 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.600 I think the more appropriate title for the talk would be America's Pyrrhic Victories. 2 00:00:06.600 --> 00:00:13.040 And one of the conclusions that I've reached in American history is that we have come from 3 00:00:13.040 --> 00:00:18.160 a very free country at the time of our founding to a point where our liberties are in great 4 00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:24.360 danger today, primarily through the Pyrrhic Victories we won. 5 00:00:24.360 --> 00:00:29.120 We lost the war in Vietnam, I suppose you'd say, and we tied the war of 1812, otherwise 6 00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:37.120 We've got a winning record. All those wars we're taught by history that we fought them to protect freedom and we won those wars. 7 00:00:37.120 --> 00:00:45.120 And so it comes as a very controversial subject to say that, know that we've lost our liberties by winning those wars. 8 00:00:45.120 --> 00:00:53.120 Of course, the word pirates comes from the general who won the war at Aesculum over the Romans in about 275 B.C. 9 00:00:53.120 --> 00:00:58.960 And it's come to stand for the point that you may win the battle and lose the war. And 10 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:06.120 our war on behalf of freedom has been lost primarily through centralization of government, 11 00:01:06.120 --> 00:01:13.320 which occurs primarily during wartime. To lead into this, the subject which has interested 12 00:01:13.320 --> 00:01:19.000 me most over the past 30, 35 years, sort of a bookworm on the subject, is the subject 13 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:24.800 of Freedom. And that leads you into all kinds of other subjects, history, psychology, economics, 14 00:01:24.800 --> 00:01:29.720 political science, philosophy. And all of those subjects are interesting to me primarily 15 00:01:29.720 --> 00:01:35.480 from the viewpoint of what effect do they have on liberty. How has liberty been gained? 16 00:01:35.480 --> 00:01:44.480 How has it been retained? And how has it been lost? And I guess you could state that there's 17 00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:51.980 An ancient riddle, and that is, how does an individual maintain individual freedom within a society? 18 00:01:51.980 --> 00:02:00.980 How do you reconcile law with liberty, government with freedom, or, stated another way, how do you grant government enough power 19 00:02:00.980 --> 00:02:07.980 in order to protect freedom without giving it so much power so that government becomes its oppressor? 20 00:02:07.980 --> 00:02:23.980 And that is the great riddle of civilization. And the best answer that's ever been given for that was the founding of America, which was based upon classical liberalism of which Ludwig von Mises is a prime promoter. 21 00:02:23.980 --> 00:02:33.580 That is basically an 18th century idea that you needed to make sure that the central government was very limited in its scope. 22 00:02:33.580 --> 00:02:43.980 So only grant it a few specific delegated powers and retain most of the powers to that government which is closest to the people, the states and the people. 23 00:02:43.980 --> 00:02:46.980 And do this through a written constitution. 24 00:02:46.980 --> 00:02:51.780 And at that time a policy was adopted which lasted for a hundred years. 25 00:02:51.780 --> 00:02:57.700 and that is the foreign policy that recognized that the greatest threat to freedom is the 26 00:02:57.700 --> 00:03:02.780 centralization of power which occurs through war. Therefore, our foreign policy should 27 00:03:02.780 --> 00:03:08.400 be based upon the fact that we will only fight those wars which are a clear and present danger 28 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:13.980 to America and otherwise we will remain neutral and not allow our government to become centralized 29 00:03:13.980 --> 00:03:18.460 for those purposes and we will get out of the, as I call it, the carton of constant 30 00:03:18.460 --> 00:03:27.140 Conflict in Europe. And so that was the great policy upon which we were founded. Mises agreed 31 00:03:27.140 --> 00:03:31.860 with this completely, and if you look at his book, Liberalism, especially chapter three, 32 00:03:31.860 --> 00:03:38.580 it contains most of his ideas on foreign policy. And he agreed to all the ideas of the founding 33 00:03:38.580 --> 00:03:45.300 fathers. He believed in a, of course, private property, private means of production, free 34 00:03:45.300 --> 00:03:50.260 free trade policy with no protective tariffs, and so forth. 35 00:03:50.260 --> 00:03:55.940 But here's one sentence I want to read to you in that chapter, and he talks about the 36 00:03:55.940 --> 00:03:59.380 foreign policy, but the main thing is this. 37 00:03:59.380 --> 00:04:03.420 Nations must come to realize that the most important problem of foreign policy is the 38 00:04:03.420 --> 00:04:08.280 establishment of lasting peace, and they must understand that that can be assured throughout 39 00:04:08.280 --> 00:04:15.280 the world only if the field of activity permitted to the state is limited to the narrowest range. 40 00:04:15.300 --> 00:04:20.620 The foreign policy of many European countries was of course at that time colonialism, which 41 00:04:20.620 --> 00:04:26.280 meant the foreign policy was based upon gaining colonies, expanding, and of course his was 42 00:04:26.280 --> 00:04:35.100 neutrality. There are certain truths about war that came about as statements made in 43 00:04:35.100 --> 00:04:40.360 opposition to war in America. One is by Randolph Bourne, American writer who opposed America's 44 00:04:40.360 --> 00:04:46.040 in the World War I, where he stated war is the health of the state, meaning that it is 45 00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:53.640 during war that government grows and becomes strong. And it's a very true statement. Another 46 00:04:53.640 --> 00:04:58.640 was made by U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson of California in opposing World War I, and that 47 00:04:58.640 --> 00:05:08.280 is when war is declared, truth is the first casualty. And government takes a position 48 00:05:08.280 --> 00:05:14.000 during war that it can use Plato's royal lie for the good of the people. 49 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:20.200 And modern wars are fought primarily through conscription and propaganda, propaganda to 50 00:05:20.200 --> 00:05:27.280 control what is the American people know about it and propaganda to try to affect the enemy. 51 00:05:27.280 --> 00:05:34.140 And the problem with that is that propaganda used during the war often becomes the history 52 00:05:34.140 --> 00:05:41.040 of that war because the government still has an interest in promoting the reasons for which 53 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:43.000 it caused the war. 54 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:48.900 So there's another adage that winners always write the history. 55 00:05:48.900 --> 00:05:54.420 So that myths and propaganda created during the war become the history of the war. 56 00:05:54.420 --> 00:05:59.300 And that is the reason that revisionism becomes necessary is that it is only when you go back 57 00:05:59.300 --> 00:06:02.700 and look at original documents and diaries and documents that the government says you 58 00:06:02.700 --> 00:06:32.700 Revisionism has gotten a bad name because they think it's something out of 1984 you're trying to change the facts, when in fact the purpose is to overcome propaganda, myth, and legends that were done during the war to see what the real truth facts were, and it is the misuse of Henry Ford's old statement that history is bunk. What he meant by that is that history written at the time of war and so forth is propaganda and it's bunk. It's not that history is bad. 59 00:06:32.700 --> 00:06:39.140 History is our main method for learning the lessons of the past so that we don't repeat 60 00:06:39.140 --> 00:06:40.140 them in the future. 61 00:06:40.140 --> 00:06:45.980 Let me tell you just briefly about how our Project Cost of War came about. 62 00:06:45.980 --> 00:06:51.500 Back several years ago, I did a review of a book for the Institute called Guardian of 63 00:06:51.500 --> 00:06:58.180 Every Other Right, and it's by a law professor at Vanderbilt, and it's a very good book on 64 00:06:58.180 --> 00:07:05.940 on Property Rights, and he liked probably 95% of those people who want to talk about 65 00:07:05.940 --> 00:07:09.680 what's happened to our property rights or liberties in America, they all trace it back 66 00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:10.680 to the New Deal. 67 00:07:10.680 --> 00:07:12.780 That's when everything went wrong. 68 00:07:12.780 --> 00:07:19.420 So in praising his book, I criticized it in the sense that he did not show that almost 69 00:07:19.420 --> 00:07:24.220 every program in the New Deal was merely a renewal, a recreation of those programs that 70 00:07:24.220 --> 00:07:27.940 were instituted first in America in World War I. 71 00:07:27.940 --> 00:07:31.900 And the same people like Bernard Baruch and the War Industries Board took over the same 72 00:07:31.900 --> 00:07:34.900 position in the New Deal. 73 00:07:34.900 --> 00:07:38.180 And he said, well, he hadn't really thought of that, but then he began to talk with Professor 74 00:07:38.180 --> 00:07:41.460 Ivey, and he and I have had a lot of conversations since then. 75 00:07:41.460 --> 00:07:45.260 And then he said, yeah, that's right, you know, rent control started World War I, this 76 00:07:45.260 --> 00:07:46.260 started and so forth. 77 00:07:46.260 --> 00:07:50.260 He said, yeah, that's right, I wish I could have added that. 78 00:07:50.260 --> 00:07:56.940 And then there was another program here on campus several years ago, a cousin of mine 79 00:07:56.940 --> 00:08:26.940 And I was in charge of, I like very much, Leo Atkins, and it was called the Second World War, quote, colon, a good war? And I thought that that was going to get into some of the things that I'm interested in, so I encouraged her to have a speech by another cousin of mine, Eugene Sledge, who gives about the best account of a frontline soldier in war you can ever read, in hopes that that would answer the question, in some sense, what were the bad points of the war. 80 00:08:26.940 --> 00:08:32.940 and all it talked about was all the wonderful things that occurred by reason of World War II. 81 00:08:32.940 --> 00:08:38.940 All the good things came out of that. Great unity of the people. Everybody came together. 82 00:08:38.940 --> 00:08:43.940 Everybody had patriotic feelings. It was the greatest thing that happened in America. 83 00:08:43.940 --> 00:08:50.940 But nobody talked about the cost of war. So Lou and I frequently have lunches together 84 00:08:50.940 --> 00:08:55.940 and I began to talk about it. I said, you know, maybe we ought to do something about not the benefits of war 85 00:08:55.940 --> 00:09:04.060 War, but the cost of war. And those costs often are long-term, unseen, hidden, that 86 00:09:04.060 --> 00:09:10.020 the people don't know about. And so that's sort of the genesis of this. And if you're 87 00:09:10.020 --> 00:09:15.660 familiar with stock market chartists, they do things called down channels and up channels. 88 00:09:15.660 --> 00:09:21.500 And my theory would be that we've got a down channel on freedom in America. And the dip 89 00:09:21.500 --> 00:09:26.460 First was the American Civil War, and then the next dip was the Spanish-American War, 90 00:09:26.460 --> 00:09:30.720 and then the next dip was World War I, the next dip World War II, and it's a down channel 91 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:36.420 in this way showing where we lost freedom. And all of the big dips on my chart are all 92 00:09:36.420 --> 00:09:42.860 in wartime except the New Deal, which I maintain is really a product primarily of World War 93 00:09:42.860 --> 00:09:54.220 Let me read you a quote I think is interesting from a prominent historian, British historian 94 00:09:54.220 --> 00:10:02.940 Arnold Toynbee. This is given a perspective from a foreign historian. This is in the New 95 00:10:02.940 --> 00:10:09.060 York Times on May 7, 1971. To most Europeans, I guess, America now looks like the most dangerous 96 00:10:09.060 --> 00:10:16.300 Since America is unquestionably the most powerful country, the transformation of America's image 97 00:10:16.300 --> 00:10:21.540 within the last 30 years is very frightening for Europeans. It's probably still more frightening 98 00:10:21.540 --> 00:10:26.100 for the great majority of the human race who are neither Europeans nor North Americans, 99 00:10:26.100 --> 00:10:30.980 but are the Latin Americans, the Asians, the Africans. They, I imagine, feel even more 100 00:10:30.980 --> 00:10:36.780 insecure than we feel. They feel at any moment America may intervene in their internal affairs 101 00:10:36.780 --> 00:10:41.580 and the same appalling consequences as have followed from American intervention in Southeast 102 00:10:41.580 --> 00:10:46.880 Asia. For the world as a whole, the CIA has now become the bogey that Communism has been 103 00:10:46.880 --> 00:10:52.580 for America. Wherever there is trouble or violence, suffering or tragedy, the rest of 104 00:10:52.580 --> 00:10:59.260 us are now quick to suspect that the CIA had a hand in it. Our phobia about the CIA is 105 00:10:59.260 --> 00:11:03.940 no doubt as fantastically excessive as America's phobia about the world of Communism. But in 106 00:11:03.940 --> 00:11:08.620 In this case, too, there is just enough convincing guidance to make the phobia genuine. In fact, 107 00:11:08.620 --> 00:11:14.660 the roles of America and of Russia have been reversed in the world's eyes. Today, America 108 00:11:14.660 --> 00:11:19.900 has become the nightmare. America that was founded on all the principles of freedom and 109 00:11:19.900 --> 00:11:24.980 a non-interventionist foreign policy has now become a nightmare to others in the world 110 00:11:24.980 --> 00:11:28.780 looking to us. 111 00:11:28.780 --> 00:11:33.540 One of the main provisions put in our Constitution, and I want to go into the reasons for that 112 00:11:33.540 --> 00:11:39.700 The minute is that Presidents cannot declare war on the Congress. But in our history, only 113 00:11:39.700 --> 00:11:46.500 five wars have been declared by Congress. The War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, 114 00:11:46.500 --> 00:11:52.740 the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II. And on over 200 occasions, the American 115 00:11:52.740 --> 00:11:58.620 President has sent soldiers to foreign countries without any declaration of war. And since 116 00:11:58.620 --> 00:12:04.340 In 1945, over 100,000 American soldiers had been killed in under-clad wars on foreign 117 00:12:04.340 --> 00:12:11.420 soil and over 400,000 battle injuries have occurred. 118 00:12:11.420 --> 00:12:18.060 The great examples of the misuse and abandonment of the Constitution recently, of course, of 119 00:12:18.060 --> 00:12:22.700 the Korean War and Vietnam War, clearly not police actions as they were advertised, but 120 00:12:22.700 --> 00:12:26.360 major wars in which they suffered great damage. 121 00:12:26.360 --> 00:12:30.720 But the principal example of violation of the Constitution, in that respect, is the 122 00:12:30.720 --> 00:12:37.120 American Civil War, where Lincoln launched a massive war without any authority from Congress 123 00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:42.040 whatsoever, and it still is unmatched for loss of lives, American lives, of any other 124 00:12:42.040 --> 00:12:43.040 war. 125 00:12:43.040 --> 00:12:56.800 Let me give you a quote from Daniel Webster. I'm picking and choosing about my article 126 00:12:56.800 --> 00:13:03.240 I've written on cost of war. Listen to this. Miracles do not cluster. Hold on to the Constitution 127 00:13:03.240 --> 00:13:08.040 of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands. What has happened once 128 00:13:08.040 --> 00:13:27.960 The Founding Fathers were well aware of the need for a non-interventionist foreign policy 129 00:13:27.960 --> 00:13:32.280 and Washington and Jefferson stated this, but it was Washington's idea in the Farewell 130 00:13:32.280 --> 00:13:37.840 Address, is it peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with 131 00:13:37.840 --> 00:13:46.840 The founding father, I think, that really gets down to the nitty-gritty is James Madison. 132 00:13:46.840 --> 00:13:49.840 Let me give you two quotes from him. 133 00:13:49.840 --> 00:13:56.840 First on why you need a non-interventionist foreign policy to protect liberty. 134 00:13:56.840 --> 00:14:04.840 Madison states, of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded 135 00:14:04.840 --> 00:14:10.840 because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies. 136 00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:19.840 From these proceed debts and taxes, and armies and debts and taxes are the known instruments for bringing about the many under the domination of the few. 137 00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:25.840 No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. 138 00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:27.600 Warfare. 139 00:14:27.600 --> 00:14:33.720 And then another quote from Madison, which was part of his address to the Constitutional 140 00:14:33.720 --> 00:14:39.400 Convention, states why you don't allow the President to declare war and be in charge 141 00:14:39.400 --> 00:14:40.800 of starting wars. 142 00:14:40.800 --> 00:14:47.300 He states this, war is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. 143 00:14:47.300 --> 00:14:50.640 In war, a physical force is to be created. 144 00:14:50.640 --> 00:14:54.140 And it is the executive will which is to direct it. 145 00:14:54.140 --> 00:15:00.060 In war the public treasuries are to be unlocked, and it is the executive hand which is to dispense 146 00:15:00.060 --> 00:15:01.060 them. 147 00:15:01.060 --> 00:15:05.860 In war the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied, and it is the executive 148 00:15:05.860 --> 00:15:13.420 patronage under which they are to be enjoyed, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle, 149 00:15:13.420 --> 00:15:19.700 the strongest passions and the most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast, ambition, 150 00:15:19.700 --> 00:15:29.700 Average, vanity, the honorable or the venal love of fame are all in a conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace. 151 00:15:29.700 --> 00:15:36.700 I think that sort of summarizes why the American policy was started. 152 00:15:36.700 --> 00:15:45.700 One thing that is interesting, there's a great new book out by Forrest MacDonald on American presidents. 153 00:15:45.700 --> 00:15:55.700 He talks about this, about sort of the difference. In the 18th century, people read history for the purpose of learning lessons from history. 154 00:15:55.700 --> 00:16:00.700 And they went back and read the original historians. Here's what MacDonald states. 155 00:16:00.700 --> 00:16:08.700 History, to most of the authors of the Constitution, was more valuable than political theory because it was more real. 156 00:16:08.700 --> 00:16:15.180 were real. As Bowling Book put it, history was philosophy by example. 18th century Americans 157 00:16:15.180 --> 00:16:21.660 read widely in history, thought historically, and cited history as authority. John Dickinson 158 00:16:21.660 --> 00:16:27.980 expressed a prevailing sentiment when he said, quote, experience must be our only guide for 159 00:16:27.980 --> 00:16:34.980 reason may mislead us. Well, who were the historians that they read and who influenced 160 00:16:34.980 --> 00:16:39.980 Two of them, they studied Greek and Roman history and they read those historians. 161 00:16:39.980 --> 00:16:44.060 I was impressed when Charles Adams spoke to us about how he goes back and reads the original 162 00:16:44.060 --> 00:16:45.660 historians. 163 00:16:45.660 --> 00:16:51.300 And those historians wrote for the purpose of telling a story and teaching you a lesson 164 00:16:51.300 --> 00:16:55.260 of why history, the mistakes in history should not be repeated. 165 00:16:55.260 --> 00:17:02.260 The first historian who wrote it told us about the Persian Wars where the Persians outnumbered 166 00:17:02.260 --> 00:17:07.660 and the Greeks ten to one. And they invaded Greece and the Greeks repelled them over and 167 00:17:07.660 --> 00:17:14.060 over with great courage and honor. And he was impressed by the fact that, he wrote it 168 00:17:14.060 --> 00:17:19.740 as, was impressed by the fact that as the Greeks repelled the Persians, the Greeks never 169 00:17:19.740 --> 00:17:25.100 tried to impose empire on anyone else. They protected themselves and repelled their enemies 170 00:17:25.100 --> 00:17:30.460 and never saw empire themselves. And the next historian that probably teaches us the most 171 00:17:30.460 --> 00:17:39.100 And he was a warrior himself and had fought in the Greek wars and he tells us the story 172 00:17:39.100 --> 00:17:48.580 and the lessons from the Peloponnesian Wars and in that he talks about that Athens lost 173 00:17:48.580 --> 00:17:55.220 her soul and her freedom through constant warfare, that the Athenians in their constant 174 00:17:55.220 --> 00:18:05.980 Warfare with Sparta became as power-seeking and as arrogant as the prior invading Persians, 175 00:18:05.980 --> 00:18:13.180 and that he teaches you that you must stay away from wars in order to protect your freedom. 176 00:18:13.180 --> 00:18:18.380 And he points out that the real turning point in the Peloponnesian War was when the great 177 00:18:18.380 --> 00:18:23.580 Athenian Navy, which was their main strength, was almost totally destroyed in the Syracuse 178 00:18:23.580 --> 00:18:31.660 Harbor in Sicily, not trying to protect Athens or Greece, but trying to conquer Sicily. And 179 00:18:31.660 --> 00:18:36.580 his is probably the greatest statement against empire, that you lose your own freedom through 180 00:18:36.580 --> 00:18:45.220 empire. There's another influence, I think, on the founding fathers from Shakespeare. 181 00:18:45.220 --> 00:18:51.740 He tells about what I would call the oldest trick in the trade of governance. And that 182 00:18:51.740 --> 00:19:00.220 is if you want to distract your domestic critics, get a foreign war going. If you want to limit 183 00:19:00.220 --> 00:19:07.460 the sin against you, get a foreign war going. It's an old trick of tyrants and kings, and 184 00:19:07.460 --> 00:19:14.560 Shakespeare talks about that in Henry IV. And, of course, the language I'll give it 185 00:19:14.560 --> 00:19:21.720 Walter says you should busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels. In that the king is dying 186 00:19:21.720 --> 00:19:26.600 and his son is there and he's telling his sons about the Machiavellian use of power 187 00:19:26.600 --> 00:19:30.920 and this is how you'd be a good king. He says first of all let me tell you this, you remember 188 00:19:30.920 --> 00:19:36.600 the long crusade we had to go to the Holy Land? Well that was all a political ploy. I 189 00:19:36.600 --> 00:19:43.440 was trying to silence my local critics and that's what you have to do and Harold Goddard 190 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:51.240 Shakespeare critic says his advice boils down to this. He says, quote, make war, dear boy, 191 00:19:51.240 --> 00:20:00.080 and God grant that your reign may be a peaceful one. The language Shakespeare uses is this, 192 00:20:00.080 --> 00:20:07.200 and had a purpose now to lead out many to the Holy Land, lest rest and lying still make 193 00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:13.240 Let them look too near into my state. Therefore, my Harry, be at thy course to busy, giddy 194 00:20:13.240 --> 00:20:19.960 minds with foreign quarrels. That action, hence borne out, may waste the memory of the 195 00:20:19.960 --> 00:20:26.960 former days." It's a very eloquent statement of foreign policy. 196 00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:32.920 There's another lesson gained to the founding fathers through the Spanish conquest of the 197 00:20:32.920 --> 00:20:45.040 of the Aztecs and the Incas, and I don't know if I've indexed that here, but it, this 198 00:20:45.040 --> 00:20:51.920 occurred of course before the founding of America, and the lessons in that is that the, 199 00:20:51.920 --> 00:20:59.080 can't find it, but basically it was this, that the Aztec and Inca society was found 200 00:20:59.080 --> 00:21:04.080 They seem to have lost their freedom primarily through two means. 201 00:21:04.080 --> 00:21:13.080 Their rulers promised them security from want and security from foreign invasions 202 00:21:13.080 --> 00:21:15.080 if they would simply give them their freedom. 203 00:21:15.080 --> 00:21:17.080 It was the war and welfare state. 204 00:21:17.080 --> 00:21:22.080 And that lesson was available to the founders of America. 205 00:21:22.080 --> 00:21:24.080 So they learned lessons from history, 206 00:21:24.080 --> 00:21:26.080 and they formulated American policy 207 00:21:26.080 --> 00:21:30.960 of the American Government based on the lessons of history. 208 00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:36.400 Let's get into the American Civil War. 209 00:21:36.400 --> 00:21:40.280 I have no, I'm not a military star and I have no interest in the battles of the Civil 210 00:21:40.280 --> 00:21:41.280 War. 211 00:21:41.280 --> 00:21:44.680 My interest is mainly and simply what was the cause of the war, what was the real cause 212 00:21:44.680 --> 00:21:47.160 and what was the real effect. 213 00:21:47.160 --> 00:21:55.600 And the myth is and what we are all taught is that the abolition of slavery was the purpose 214 00:21:55.600 --> 00:21:57.600 and Cause of the War. 215 00:21:57.600 --> 00:22:02.000 And when you bring this up with people and argue about it, 216 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:06.200 so well, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued during the war, right? 217 00:22:06.200 --> 00:22:07.000 Yeah. 218 00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:10.500 And the 13th Amendment was passed at the end of the war, right? 219 00:22:10.500 --> 00:22:13.000 Well, abolition of slavery was the cause of the war, wasn't it? 220 00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:13.800 No. 221 00:22:13.800 --> 00:22:14.400 Why wasn't it? 222 00:22:14.400 --> 00:22:21.600 I said, and my answer to them is, I said, when it rains, the streets are wet, aren't they? 223 00:22:21.600 --> 00:22:22.300 Yeah. 224 00:22:22.300 --> 00:22:24.500 After the rains over, the streets are wet, aren't they? 225 00:22:24.500 --> 00:22:26.860 Did the wet streets cause the rain? 226 00:22:26.860 --> 00:22:29.060 And they say, well, that's some trick of a trial lawyer. 227 00:22:29.060 --> 00:22:29.980 And they say, no. 228 00:22:29.980 --> 00:22:35.900 Those things occurred, but they occurred as a result of the war 229 00:22:35.900 --> 00:22:38.300 and not the cause of it. 230 00:22:38.300 --> 00:22:41.700 And the question of slavery that existed 231 00:22:41.700 --> 00:22:44.700 was not whether slavery should be abolished in the states 232 00:22:44.700 --> 00:22:47.580 where it existed, but whether it should be expanded or extended 233 00:22:47.580 --> 00:22:49.780 into the other new states and territories. 234 00:22:49.780 --> 00:22:53.020 And the purpose was control of Congress. 235 00:22:53.020 --> 00:22:58.940 and the whole Constitution was formed by trying to equalize the balance by counting slaves 236 00:22:58.940 --> 00:23:04.420 as three-fifths of a vote and other things like that to keep the South from being a minority. 237 00:23:04.420 --> 00:23:12.380 And that's what continued to be the question as slavery was extended into other areas. 238 00:23:12.380 --> 00:23:16.740 What were some of the real causes? An interesting book that Lew recommended to me is called 239 00:23:16.740 --> 00:23:23.740 for Albion Seed. Albion is in the White Cliffs of Dover. It's about who settled America, 240 00:23:24.660 --> 00:23:30.300 what were the seeds planted in America by the English who came over here. Part of that 241 00:23:30.300 --> 00:23:35.820 book talks about two of those groups, the two main groups that founded America, were 242 00:23:35.820 --> 00:23:40.940 the two groups that fought the English Civil War. And those were the Puritans who settled 243 00:23:40.940 --> 00:23:44.820 Massachusetts and the Cavaliers who settled Virginia. And they were fighting when they 244 00:23:44.820 --> 00:23:48.380 When they came over here, they were fighting, while they were here, they were fighting the 245 00:23:48.380 --> 00:23:51.580 Civil War during this whole period of time. 246 00:23:51.580 --> 00:23:55.140 So we imported the English Civil War into our area. 247 00:23:55.140 --> 00:24:02.140 And that book goes into the various differences of the cultures, the ideas on religion and 248 00:24:03.780 --> 00:24:05.380 so forth. 249 00:24:05.380 --> 00:24:12.380 And it was as though two separate countries came here during a war and settled our country. 250 00:24:12.380 --> 00:24:22.380 Another thing is the basic difference in ideas between the North and South back before the Civil War. 251 00:24:22.380 --> 00:24:34.380 Let me read what Lord Acton, the great historian of liberty, was a champion of the Confederate cause because he saw it as the battle for liberty. 252 00:24:34.380 --> 00:24:37.380 He wrote this at the time of the war. 253 00:24:37.380 --> 00:24:43.400 It seems clear to me that if slavery had never existed, a community divided by principles, 254 00:24:43.400 --> 00:24:49.140 so opposite as those of Jefferson and Hamilton, will be distracted by their antagonism until 255 00:24:49.140 --> 00:24:51.240 one of them shall prevail. 256 00:24:51.240 --> 00:24:56.900 And that was the basic conflict that existed from the time of the Constitution, the Federalist 257 00:24:56.900 --> 00:25:00.780 and the Anti-Federalist, the Centralizers and the Decentralizers. 258 00:25:00.780 --> 00:25:07.980 And that came over and became exaggerated and emphasized, enhanced by industrial revolution. 259 00:25:07.980 --> 00:25:13.940 You had an agricultural society and an industrial society, and you had ideas that to protect 260 00:25:13.940 --> 00:25:20.180 a growing industrial society, you would have a protective tariff, which would protect those 261 00:25:20.180 --> 00:25:26.020 industries from competition from abroad and allow you to sell your products to the South 262 00:25:26.020 --> 00:25:53.940 Charles Adams, who was here, gives a great statement about all this. He says, in 1832, 263 00:25:53.940 --> 00:25:59.100 When national debt was paid and there was no justification for import taxes at high rates, 264 00:25:59.100 --> 00:26:03.820 except to promote a monopoly in the hands of northern industries to raise prices for 265 00:26:03.820 --> 00:26:08.580 southern consumers, the South exported about three-quarters of its goods and in turn used 266 00:26:08.580 --> 00:26:12.180 the money to buy European goods, which carried the high import tax. 267 00:26:12.180 --> 00:26:17.940 This means that the South paid about three-quarters of all the federal tax, most of which was 268 00:26:17.940 --> 00:26:19.980 spent in the North. 269 00:26:19.980 --> 00:26:24.780 If the South did not pay for the foreign goods and instead pay the high taxes, the alternative 270 00:26:24.780 --> 00:26:28.060 was to buy Northern manufactured goods at excessively high prices. 271 00:26:28.060 --> 00:26:32.780 Either way, the Southern money ended up in the North. 272 00:26:32.780 --> 00:26:38.940 There's a brand new biography I would recommend, especially to the Civil War buffs, on Admiral 273 00:26:38.940 --> 00:26:46.140 Simms, who's by the son of General Maxwell Taylor, John Taylor, and it's called Confederate 274 00:26:46.140 --> 00:26:53.140 Rater. And Sims was not a Southerner. He was a career naval officer. He had no slaves, 275 00:26:53.340 --> 00:26:58.860 had no interest whatsoever in slavery. And he resigned his commission and joined the 276 00:26:58.860 --> 00:27:05.860 Confederate Navy. And his reasons for supporting the Southern cause are summarized by John 277 00:27:08.300 --> 00:27:14.200 Taylor. Let me read this to you because it sort of brings this all together. This is 278 00:27:14.200 --> 00:27:17.240 This is Taylor's summarization of Sims' views. 279 00:27:17.240 --> 00:27:20.960 Since the Mexican War, Sims had come to identify more with the South and less with the United 280 00:27:20.960 --> 00:27:21.960 States. 281 00:27:21.960 --> 00:27:27.360 It was much more than the sectional loyalty of a newcomer to Alabama. 282 00:27:27.360 --> 00:27:31.600 Rather, it grew out of his study of economic trends and the constitutional doctrines. 283 00:27:31.600 --> 00:27:36.660 An avid reader, Sims was convinced that the South was a victim of economic oppression 284 00:27:36.660 --> 00:27:41.080 by the North, that policies determined in Washington had resulted in a transfer of wealth 285 00:27:41.080 --> 00:27:43.340 from the South to the North. 286 00:27:43.340 --> 00:27:49.640 He placed much blame on the recently departed Henry Clay. Clay's American system had provided 287 00:27:49.640 --> 00:27:55.340 for tariffs to protect fledgling New England industries. Yet the effect of the tariff legislation, 288 00:27:55.340 --> 00:28:01.100 Sims concluded, was a stifled foreign competition, compelled the southern consumer to pay artificially 289 00:28:01.100 --> 00:28:06.940 high prices for manufactured goods. In Sims' view, the problem went beyond economic policy. 290 00:28:06.940 --> 00:28:12.100 He saw the North and the South as inherently antagonistic. Thinking in the North was dominated 291 00:28:12.100 --> 00:28:16.740 by New England Intelligentsia, which in turn was drawn from the intolerant descendants of 292 00:28:16.740 --> 00:28:20.980 the Puritans. From religious intoleration, it was but a short step to constitutional 293 00:28:20.980 --> 00:28:27.740 obstructionism. Recalling New England's opposition to the War of 1812, Sims concluded, as long 294 00:28:27.740 --> 00:28:31.780 as they were in the minority, the New England state stood strictly on their state rights 295 00:28:31.780 --> 00:28:36.860 in resisting such measures as were unpalatable to them, even to the extremity of threatening 296 00:28:36.860 --> 00:28:41.980 secession, which of course they did in the Hartford Convention of 1814. It was only when 297 00:28:41.980 --> 00:28:45.380 Then they found themselves in the majority that the New Englanders had abandoned their 298 00:28:45.380 --> 00:28:46.380 states' rights doctrine. 299 00:28:46.380 --> 00:28:50.540 Thus, Simms saw the United States as composed of incompatible societies. 300 00:28:50.540 --> 00:28:53.740 The result could only be disastrous for the Southern minority. 301 00:28:53.740 --> 00:29:00.660 He quoted with approval the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville, who for two decades 302 00:29:00.660 --> 00:29:04.540 earlier had compared the states of the hostile nations under one government. 303 00:29:04.540 --> 00:29:08.380 The tyranny of the majority of which de Tocqueville had won was at hand. 304 00:29:08.380 --> 00:29:12.820 One of Simms' heroes was Patrick Henry, who had opposed ratification of the Constitution 305 00:29:12.820 --> 00:29:17.260 on the grounds that the more populous North would eventually come to dominate the South. 306 00:29:17.260 --> 00:29:21.740 And for the volatile issue of slavery, Simms dismissed anti-slavery agitation as a red 307 00:29:21.740 --> 00:29:26.700 herring, an issue that Northern politicians exploited in order to isolate and weaken the 308 00:29:26.700 --> 00:29:27.700 South. 309 00:29:27.700 --> 00:29:31.720 Those who opposed the spread of slavery were not humanitarians, rather they feared the political 310 00:29:31.720 --> 00:29:37.080 repercussions from the formation of new slave states, and he quotes Simms, quote, the fat 311 00:29:37.080 --> 00:29:41.080 That southern goose could not resist being plucked as long as things stood. But it was 312 00:29:41.080 --> 00:29:44.880 feared that if slavery was permitted to go into territories, the goose might become strong 313 00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:52.320 enough to resist being plucked. It's a pretty good explanation of his theories. His wife 314 00:29:52.320 --> 00:29:58.000 did not agree with him, and so she took their three daughters and moved to Ohio at the beginning 315 00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:03.680 of the war. All three of their sons fought for the Confederacy, and his brothers fought 316 00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:08.720 for the Union. So, he is a man who simply looked at the issues and chose sides based 317 00:30:08.720 --> 00:30:14.720 on the issues. 318 00:30:14.720 --> 00:30:24.460 Let's look at one more question from Lord Acton in his statements. He said, slavery 319 00:30:24.460 --> 00:30:31.200 was not the cause of secession, but the reason for its failure. In other words, that's not 320 00:30:31.200 --> 00:30:36.200 This is not what promoted the war, but it is one of the main reasons that the South lost. 321 00:30:36.200 --> 00:30:43.200 Let's look at some of Abraham Lincoln's statements made before the war. 322 00:30:43.200 --> 00:30:49.200 First, when he was a Whig and ran for the Illinois Legislation, 323 00:30:49.200 --> 00:30:54.200 this is from one of his first speeches I found in one of Emmy Mel Bradford's books. 324 00:30:54.200 --> 00:31:05.840 This is Lincoln. I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have 325 00:31:05.840 --> 00:31:10.520 been solicited by my many friends to become a candidate for the legislature. My politics 326 00:31:10.520 --> 00:31:16.220 are short and sweet like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank, in favor 327 00:31:16.220 --> 00:31:21.400 of the internal improvement system, and in favor of a high protective tariff. And that's 328 00:31:21.400 --> 00:31:23.400 That's the way he started his political career. 329 00:31:23.400 --> 00:31:29.400 In his first inaugural address, he says this, 330 00:31:29.400 --> 00:31:37.400 I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. 331 00:31:37.400 --> 00:31:43.400 I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. 332 00:31:43.400 --> 00:31:54.400 And then he says, but I have in regard to collecting taxes and impost, beyond what may be necessary for those objects, there will be no invasion, no use of force. 333 00:31:54.400 --> 00:31:59.400 In other words, he's saying, I will use force for that purpose, but not to eliminate slavery. 334 00:31:59.400 --> 00:32:10.360 During the war, and in August of 1860, Horace Greeley, who was editor of the New York Tribune, 335 00:32:10.360 --> 00:32:17.120 wrote an editorial encouraging Lincoln to take the war beyond this protected union and 336 00:32:17.120 --> 00:32:19.840 give it some high moral purpose. 337 00:32:19.840 --> 00:32:25.640 And so Lincoln wrote back a letter to the editor which was published on August 25, 1862. 338 00:32:25.640 --> 00:32:32.680 states this, my paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either 339 00:32:32.680 --> 00:32:37.840 to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would 340 00:32:37.840 --> 00:32:41.320 do it. And if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it. And if I could 341 00:32:41.320 --> 00:32:46.320 save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that. I don't know how much 342 00:32:46.320 --> 00:32:53.320 more specific you can get that the war was not fought for the purpose of abolishing slavery. 343 00:32:55.640 --> 00:33:00.840 Some of the interesting study you can find is done by people who are promoting the Northern 344 00:33:00.840 --> 00:33:05.400 View and you have to read the footnotes and go read the bibliographical essays. But there's 345 00:33:05.400 --> 00:33:10.680 a book, two recent books, one called Lincoln the War President and another called Union 346 00:33:10.680 --> 00:33:20.640 in Peril. But it talks about the cabinet meetings before the war started. And in one of those 347 00:33:20.640 --> 00:33:27.640 In those meetings, the prime military advisor was General Winfield Scott, and the Secretary of State was Henry Stewart. 348 00:33:27.640 --> 00:33:37.640 And they specifically advised Lincoln not to reinforce the troops at Fort Sumter, because they said it would be a useless act that would promote an unnecessary war. 349 00:33:37.640 --> 00:33:45.640 But Seward went further, and in the diary of Gettys and Wells, you will see where he says they had a meeting on April 1, and in a written memo, 350 00:33:45.640 --> 00:33:53.000 Seward told Lincoln that, you know, don't do anything about the South because, you know, 351 00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:57.000 we don't want to destroy their economy, that's what we're living off of. 352 00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:03.820 But I know you need a war, promote a war with France or Spain, much preferable. 353 00:34:03.820 --> 00:34:05.940 And Lincoln thought that was too risky. 354 00:34:05.940 --> 00:34:10.080 And then later he began to make, Seward began to make statements indicating they may start 355 00:34:10.080 --> 00:34:11.840 a war with England. 356 00:34:11.840 --> 00:34:17.160 and the book Union in Peril which is written by the head of the history department of Alabama. 357 00:34:17.160 --> 00:34:20.360 He goes into the English documents and that's the way apparently you're going to be able 358 00:34:20.360 --> 00:34:25.520 to find much of the good information about that because they were sympathetic to the 359 00:34:25.520 --> 00:34:29.520 South and they were not trying to destroy documents or promote propaganda. 360 00:34:29.520 --> 00:34:39.720 I mean it's back to the old Shakespearean advice of busy giddy minds with the foreign 361 00:34:39.720 --> 00:34:43.200 and War is what Sue had preferred rather than an internal struggle that would kill the South's 362 00:34:43.200 --> 00:34:46.640 economy which would hurt their own economy. 363 00:34:46.640 --> 00:34:50.240 Well how did the Emancipation Proclamation come about? 364 00:34:50.240 --> 00:34:56.680 Long after the war had started and you will find in the Union in Peril the conclusion 365 00:34:56.680 --> 00:35:04.520 reached that it was a proclamation used as a military necessity to prevent British intervention. 366 00:35:04.520 --> 00:35:15.520 Lincoln himself admitted that it was strictly a military measure that was used, and he states this, 367 00:35:15.520 --> 00:35:20.520 Things had gone, this is Lincoln, things had gone from bad to worse until I felt we had reached the end of our rope 368 00:35:20.520 --> 00:35:27.520 on the plan we were pursuing, that we had about played our last card, and I must change our tactics or lose the game. 369 00:35:27.520 --> 00:35:33.520 I am now determined upon the adoption of the Emancipation Policy. 370 00:35:33.520 --> 00:35:39.520 Lincoln also said after issuing the policies, the character of the war will be changed. 371 00:35:39.520 --> 00:35:45.520 It will be one of subjugation. The Old South is to be destroyed and replaced by new propositions and ideas. 372 00:35:45.520 --> 00:35:52.520 Let me move along a little bit more and get some of the cost of the war. 373 00:35:52.520 --> 00:35:59.520 Of course, the cost of the war was this. It was in effect holding a new constitutional convention. 374 00:35:59.520 --> 00:36:03.520 It held it on the battlefields and was settled by bullets. 375 00:36:03.520 --> 00:36:07.440 And it completely changed the American government 376 00:36:07.440 --> 00:36:09.960 from one of limited powers to a consolidated government 377 00:36:09.960 --> 00:36:13.280 with hardly any checks and balances on the power. 378 00:36:13.280 --> 00:36:15.360 Lord Acton wrote a letter to Robert E. Lee 379 00:36:15.360 --> 00:36:18.360 after the Civil War and said this, 380 00:36:18.360 --> 00:36:20.760 I saw in states' rights the only availing check 381 00:36:20.760 --> 00:36:23.320 upon the absolutism of the sovereign will 382 00:36:23.320 --> 00:36:25.460 and secession filled me with hope, 383 00:36:25.460 --> 00:36:26.880 not as it did the destruction, 384 00:36:26.880 --> 00:36:29.320 but as to the redemption of democracy. 385 00:36:29.320 --> 00:36:33.920 The FYD and you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization. 386 00:36:33.920 --> 00:36:37.840 And I mourn for the state which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that 387 00:36:37.840 --> 00:36:42.280 which was saved at Waterloo. 388 00:36:42.280 --> 00:36:49.040 Gore Baddall, in his book, Lincoln, says that Lincoln is America's first dictator. 389 00:36:49.040 --> 00:36:55.360 And he says this, the memory of Lincoln, and this is in an essay called United States Essays, 390 00:36:55.360 --> 00:36:59.000 the memory of Lincoln was and is a constant stimulus to the ambitious chief magistrate 391 00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:04.120 who knows that once the nation is at war, his powers are truly unlimited while the possibilities 392 00:37:04.120 --> 00:37:11.440 of personal glory are immeasurable, right out of James Madison, his first McDonald's 393 00:37:11.440 --> 00:37:14.780 assessment in his book on American Presidency. 394 00:37:14.780 --> 00:37:18.520 Many people then and later criticize Lincoln's conduct as excessive. 395 00:37:18.520 --> 00:37:23.960 The abolitionist Wendell Phillips called Lincoln an unlimited despot, and Justice Benjamin 396 00:37:23.960 --> 00:37:28.300 Curtis wrote that he had established a military despotism when William Whiting solicited the 397 00:37:28.300 --> 00:37:31.580 The Federal Department published a book called War Powers Under the Constitution, in which 398 00:37:31.580 --> 00:37:36.420 he maintained that in wartime the President's actions are subject to no constitutional restraints 399 00:37:36.420 --> 00:37:37.420 whatever. 400 00:37:37.420 --> 00:37:41.580 Senator Charles Sumner thundered that the doctrine and Lincoln's behavior under it was 401 00:37:41.580 --> 00:37:46.780 a pretension so irrational and unconstitutional, so absurd and tyrannical as to deserve no 402 00:37:46.780 --> 00:37:47.780 respect. 403 00:37:47.780 --> 00:37:50.820 The doctrine when followed would change the federal authority from one of government of 404 00:37:50.820 --> 00:37:52.980 law to that of a military dictator. 405 00:37:52.980 --> 00:37:57.180 20th century historians and political scientists routinely characterized Lincoln's presidency 406 00:37:57.180 --> 00:38:03.020 as a Dictatorship or as a Constitutional Dictatorship, sometimes using the word in the benign Roman 407 00:38:03.020 --> 00:38:09.400 sense, sometimes in its sinister modern sense. 408 00:38:09.400 --> 00:38:13.440 One of the best books you can read about the destruction of civil liberties during the 409 00:38:13.440 --> 00:38:17.540 Civil War is written by the director of the Lincoln Museum, Mark Neely, wrote a book called 410 00:38:17.540 --> 00:38:18.980 Fate of Liberty. 411 00:38:18.980 --> 00:38:25.380 And he goes through, he studies 13,000 of these unconstitutional trials where military 412 00:38:25.380 --> 00:38:31.160 Law was declared in the North, in New York and Illinois and other places. People were 413 00:38:31.160 --> 00:38:35.680 tried before a military judge, without a jury, without a lawyer, without a right of appeal 414 00:38:35.680 --> 00:38:41.920 and sentenced to death, in many cases, only on suspicion. Lincoln was fighting the copperheads. 415 00:38:41.920 --> 00:38:49.120 He sentenced a fellow, Van Landingham, who criticized him, out of the North, said you 416 00:38:49.120 --> 00:38:54.520 had to go to the South, and he eventually went to Canada. Took over newspapers, railroads. 417 00:38:54.520 --> 00:39:11.560 War and the Rise of the State 418 00:39:11.560 --> 00:39:15.360 In connection with the war, the Lincoln administration attempted to intervene in areas of national 419 00:39:15.360 --> 00:39:18.280 life and economy that the federal government had never touched before. 420 00:39:18.280 --> 00:39:23.280 Prior to 1861, the national government had been a minor purchaser in the American economy. 421 00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:27.240 During the war it became the largest single purchaser in the country, a catalyst of rapid 422 00:39:27.240 --> 00:39:31.800 growth in key industries such as iron, textile, shoe manufacturing, meat packing. The Civil 423 00:39:31.800 --> 00:39:36.040 War spawned a revolution in taxation that permanently altered the structure of American 424 00:39:36.040 --> 00:39:40.600 Federalism and the relationship of the central government to the national economy. Prior to 425 00:39:40.600 --> 00:39:44.740 the war, over 80% of Federal revenue had come from customs duties, but despite the numerous 426 00:39:44.740 --> 00:39:49.400 upward revisions of tariffs during the war, those could provide only a fraction of what 427 00:39:49.400 --> 00:39:54.640 was needed to sustain the Union armistice. On August 5, 1861, the first income tax in 428 00:39:54.640 --> 00:39:59.240 U.S. history came into effect, followed by the Internal Revenue Act of 1862, which levied 429 00:39:59.240 --> 00:40:04.200 a whole series of new taxes, stamp taxes, excise taxes, luxury taxes, grocery street 430 00:40:04.200 --> 00:40:09.640 taxes, inheritance tax, value added tax, manufactured tax on goods. The latter act also created 431 00:40:09.640 --> 00:40:15.160 the Bureau of Internal Revenue, perhaps the most effective vehicle of Federal power ever 432 00:40:15.160 --> 00:40:19.320 created. The formation of an Internal Revenue system was part of the largest Civil War 433 00:40:19.320 --> 00:40:24.200 Revolution and the Nature's Financial Structure. In February 1862, Congress enacted the Legal 434 00:40:24.200 --> 00:40:28.680 Tender Act, authorized the Treasury to issue 150 million in notes of greenback dollars, 435 00:40:28.680 --> 00:40:34.140 not covered by hard specie. Creation of the national currency forever altered the monetary 436 00:40:34.140 --> 00:40:38.520 structure of the United States. All these measures had some link to the war effort. 437 00:40:38.520 --> 00:40:43.260 It was vital to retain western support against the south, to protect industry from competition, 438 00:40:43.260 --> 00:40:47.640 and to obtain cheap labor from abroad. But the long-range thrust was to favor industrial 439 00:40:47.640 --> 00:40:52.840 Growth, Westward Expansion, and the interest of Eastern Urban Capital over those of Agriculture. 440 00:40:52.840 --> 00:40:57.080 Appomattox thus represented not just the defeat of the South, but the defeat of the whole 441 00:40:57.080 --> 00:41:02.600 Southern economic and political system, and the triumph of the state-fostered industrial 442 00:41:02.600 --> 00:41:05.120 and financial complex in the North. 443 00:41:05.120 --> 00:41:10.800 You've got the birth of the military-industrial complex right there. 444 00:41:10.800 --> 00:41:14.640 Let me hurry on to the Spanish-American War and quickly cover that. 445 00:41:14.640 --> 00:41:21.120 called the Splendid Little War by John Hay because it lasted only 229 days. 446 00:41:21.120 --> 00:41:24.440 The cause of that war, in my opinion, rose out of these facts. 447 00:41:24.440 --> 00:41:29.440 In 1890, the national census indicated that the Western frontier had been conquered or 448 00:41:29.440 --> 00:41:30.440 closed. 449 00:41:30.440 --> 00:41:38.440 In 1893, a famous essay by Frederick Jackson Turner came out and his conclusion was that 450 00:41:38.440 --> 00:41:43.840 the economic growth of America has taken place because we've had this whole continent to 451 00:41:43.840 --> 00:41:48.720 Conqueror, and so forth. And now that's coming in. America's simply got to take a new course, 452 00:41:48.720 --> 00:41:54.240 and that is we need colonies, we need foreign markets. Well, of course, the pretense under 453 00:41:54.240 --> 00:41:57.760 which the war was fought was to free Cuba, and there was a doctrine at that time that 454 00:41:57.760 --> 00:42:01.480 if a foreign power had a colony near you and they couldn't maintain order, then you had 455 00:42:01.480 --> 00:42:06.600 the right to go in and to restore it. So we launched that war primarily to free Cuba from 456 00:42:06.600 --> 00:42:12.760 the Spanish. And remember, the main became the cry that was promoted by the Hearst Papers 457 00:42:12.760 --> 00:42:19.760 and the Pulitzer Papers. In 1976, a study by the Navy called the Rickover Study shows 458 00:42:19.760 --> 00:42:23.220 conclusively now that that explosion of the battleship Maine occurred from inside the 459 00:42:23.220 --> 00:42:31.740 ship, could not have been set by the Spanish. And as a great quote from, of all people, 460 00:42:31.740 --> 00:42:37.920 Justice Black talking about the role of newspapers because the Hurston Pulitzer Papers promoted 461 00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:46.680 The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press could remain 462 00:42:46.680 --> 00:42:49.400 forever free to censor the government. 463 00:42:49.400 --> 00:42:53.700 The press was protected so it could bear the secrets of government and inform the people 464 00:42:53.700 --> 00:42:58.240 only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. 465 00:42:58.240 --> 00:43:04.080 And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part 466 00:43:04.080 --> 00:43:10.640 of the Government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die 467 00:43:10.640 --> 00:43:13.840 of foreign fevers, foreign shot, and shell. 468 00:43:13.840 --> 00:43:17.540 I mean, it's not only a recognition that the government does that, but that's the role 469 00:43:17.540 --> 00:43:23.400 the press is supposed to perform to keep us from being deceived. 470 00:43:23.400 --> 00:43:31.660 What really happened in the Spanish-American War, though, was that we tried to get Spain 471 00:43:31.660 --> 00:43:38.660 McKinley claimed the islands for America and acquired our coaling station for the purpose of going to China. 472 00:43:38.660 --> 00:43:45.660 Let me read this. McKinley became the first imperialist American president to conquer foreign land. 473 00:43:45.660 --> 00:43:49.660 He cited the same war powers for his right to rule the world. 474 00:43:49.660 --> 00:43:56.660 McKinley claimed the islands for America and acquired our coaling station for the purpose of going to China. 475 00:43:56.660 --> 00:43:59.820 A fearless American president who conquered foreign land. 476 00:43:59.820 --> 00:44:03.420 He cited the same war powers for his right to rule Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines 477 00:44:03.420 --> 00:44:05.620 for several years after the war had ended. 478 00:44:05.620 --> 00:44:10.340 A scholar of military government stated in 1904, quote, In America, we were supposed 479 00:44:10.340 --> 00:44:15.100 to have started out with an executive with care to define powers, but we are now developing 480 00:44:15.100 --> 00:44:25.780 one with the prerogatives which must be the envy of crowned heads. 481 00:44:25.780 --> 00:44:32.420 Mark Flane hit the nail on the head and said we cannot maintain an empire in the Orient 482 00:44:32.420 --> 00:44:38.140 and maintain a republic in America. American foreign policy at this point then was changed 483 00:44:38.140 --> 00:44:45.580 180 degrees from non-intervention to intervention so that up to this point we have changed the 484 00:44:45.580 --> 00:44:50.620 whole American government through the Civil War to a centralized power and in the Spanish-American 485 00:44:50.620 --> 00:44:53.620 The Peloponnesian War, we've changed the foreign policy 180 degrees. 486 00:44:56.620 --> 00:44:59.620 We're about out of time and I haven't gotten to World War I. 487 00:45:03.620 --> 00:45:08.620 In my opinion, World War I could turn out to be the Peloponnesian War of modern times. 488 00:45:09.620 --> 00:45:13.620 Because it absolutely rejected the whole premise upon which America was founded. 489 00:45:14.620 --> 00:45:17.620 People came here to get away from the cauldron of constant conflict. 490 00:45:17.620 --> 00:45:18.620 Conflict. 491 00:45:18.620 --> 00:45:23.940 It was in that war that we sent American troops and upset the balance of power in Europe and 492 00:45:23.940 --> 00:45:31.740 caused the Carthaginian peace treaty, Versailles, to be imposed on Germany, which gave rise 493 00:45:31.740 --> 00:45:37.380 to Nazism and which brought us on the end of the Second World War. 494 00:45:37.380 --> 00:45:40.620 The study of Winston Churchill is interesting in this. 495 00:45:40.620 --> 00:45:44.900 Ralph Reiko does his column, which I hope he will. 496 00:45:44.900 --> 00:45:50.620 He points out that Churchill is the personification of the war and welfare century. He started 497 00:45:50.620 --> 00:45:55.940 welfare in England by adopting the beverage system, and he was very instrumental in starting 498 00:45:55.940 --> 00:46:01.860 the World War I and World War II as far as America's intervention is concerned. Just 499 00:46:01.860 --> 00:46:09.200 a little about the sinking of the Lusitania, and there's some good books out on this now, 500 00:46:09.200 --> 00:46:14.600 And that is that it was a British liner which was off limits for German submarines. 501 00:46:14.600 --> 00:46:19.240 The German Embassy came to William Jennings Bryan, the Secretary of State, and told him 502 00:46:19.240 --> 00:46:24.120 that they had gotten a copy of the manifesto, a cargo list, and it showed that illegal weapons 503 00:46:24.120 --> 00:46:25.120 were there. 504 00:46:25.120 --> 00:46:30.120 And under international law, that allowed them to launch and attack submarines on the 505 00:46:30.120 --> 00:46:31.920 Lusitania and sink it. 506 00:46:31.920 --> 00:46:35.400 William Jennings Bryan took the information of Woodrow Wilson and asked him to warn American 507 00:46:35.400 --> 00:46:37.280 citizens, which he refused to do. 508 00:46:37.280 --> 00:46:43.280 The German Embassy even put ads in the New York papers warning American citizens not to sail. 509 00:46:43.280 --> 00:46:51.280 Winston Churchill at that time was Lord of Admiralty and he switched the captains on the ship on the day of the sailing, 510 00:46:51.280 --> 00:47:01.280 changed the course so as to put it in direct conflict with the submarine attack and over 100 lives were lost by the sinking of the Lusitania. 511 00:47:01.280 --> 00:47:10.840 The war didn't happen until a year or so later, but that was the cause by which Wilson was 512 00:47:10.840 --> 00:47:16.660 able to whip up a motion in America that over 100 American lives were lost due to the vicious 513 00:47:16.660 --> 00:47:22.240 submarine attack of the Germans, which he could have prevented, had the knowledge and 514 00:47:22.240 --> 00:47:27.240 and refused to act because he wanted to busy-getty minds with foreign quarrels. 515 00:47:34.240 --> 00:47:35.240 About out of time. 516 00:47:35.240 --> 00:47:36.240 Yeah, it is a big subject. 517 00:47:36.240 --> 00:47:38.240 I don't know if I can cut this down to now. 518 00:47:41.240 --> 00:47:42.240 Let me give you this. 519 00:47:42.240 --> 00:47:46.240 This is Schaeffer's book on America and the Great War. 520 00:47:46.240 --> 00:47:51.240 Potentially the most important result of all was the lesson deposited in the American historical record. 521 00:47:51.240 --> 00:48:02.240 Overseas wars can be beneficial to American business, for the profits that they generate and for the security and stability a war welfare state affords to those in a position to take advantage of it. 522 00:48:02.240 --> 00:48:09.240 Another quote from John Keegan, who is probably the foremost authority on war, the history of war, he says this, 523 00:48:09.240 --> 00:48:39.240 The First World War fought almost exclusively between American states, terminated European dominance of the world, and through the suffering it inflicted on the participant populations, corrupted what was best in the civilization, its liberalism and its hopefulness, and he's using liberalism there the same way Mises does, classical liberalism of the philosophy of freedom, and conferred on militarists and totalitarians the role of proclaiming the future. The future that the militarists and totalitarians wanted brought about the Second World War, which completed the ruin 524 00:48:39.240 --> 00:48:43.240 initiated by the first. It also brought about the development of nuclear weapons and the 525 00:48:43.240 --> 00:48:51.520 logical culmination of the technological trend in western way of warfare. Let me just try 526 00:48:51.520 --> 00:49:00.120 to read one thing to you. Gosh, well, Wilson on civil liberties is really, I'm going to 527 00:49:00.120 --> 00:49:06.800 touch on that. I hate to give that up. President Wilson followed Lincoln's example of ruthlessly 528 00:49:06.800 --> 00:49:13.520 Crushing Civil Liberties. The Espionage Act was passed in 1917, Sedition Act 1918, and 529 00:49:13.520 --> 00:49:18.040 then he issued an executive order on April 13, 1917, creating the Committee on Public 530 00:49:18.040 --> 00:49:23.040 Information, which was funded by his executive funds without any authority from Congress. 531 00:49:23.040 --> 00:49:29.640 Its purpose was to disseminate false propaganda to aid the war effort. Quoting Schaeffer in 532 00:49:29.640 --> 00:49:33.400 America's Great War, Wilson felt compelled to follow Lincoln and John Adams and limit 533 00:49:33.400 --> 00:49:37.680 and the freedom of ordinary citizens to dissent, a time of war, the president said, must be 534 00:49:37.680 --> 00:49:40.080 regarded as wholly exceptional. 535 00:49:40.080 --> 00:49:45.840 It was legitimate regard to these things which would, in ordinary circumstances, be innocent, 536 00:49:45.840 --> 00:49:48.720 is very dangerous to the public welfare. 537 00:49:48.720 --> 00:49:53.480 One example among thousands you can find is the prosecution of a lady called Rose Pastor 538 00:49:53.480 --> 00:49:59.640 Stokes who had this letter to the editor in the Kansas City Star which said, quote, no 539 00:49:59.640 --> 00:50:04.600 No government which is for profiteers can also be for the people and I am for the people 540 00:50:04.600 --> 00:50:07.280 and the government is for the profiteers. 541 00:50:07.280 --> 00:50:14.200 She was found guilty under the espionage and sedition acts and sentenced to ten years in 542 00:50:14.200 --> 00:50:15.840 the penitentiary. 543 00:50:15.840 --> 00:50:22.300 And the judge who sentenced her stated this in his order, quote, the only protected free 544 00:50:22.300 --> 00:50:28.760 speech which is, the only protected free speech was that which is friendly to the government, 545 00:50:28.760 --> 00:50:33.640 friendly to the war, friendly to the politics of the government, and then Wilson authorized 546 00:50:33.640 --> 00:50:37.240 the prosecution of the publisher of the paper for treason. 547 00:50:37.240 --> 00:50:41.640 He also, Wilson also favored the Peace Time Sedition Act in his late 1920s. 548 00:50:41.640 --> 00:50:45.360 He vetoed a bill which would have abolished the Espionage Act. 549 00:50:45.360 --> 00:50:50.260 I'm going to close with this. 550 00:50:50.260 --> 00:50:54.040 This is some of the economic costs of World War I. 551 00:50:54.040 --> 00:50:59.640 In virtually all cases of state building since the Renaissance, war-induced taxation was 552 00:50:59.640 --> 00:51:04.440 the wedge by which state power advanced. The United States and World War I conformed to 553 00:51:04.440 --> 00:51:09.040 this historical pattern, and this is from Porter's The War and the Rise of the State. 554 00:51:09.040 --> 00:51:13.240 The income tax amendment ratified in 1913 had been a minor source of federal revenue 555 00:51:13.240 --> 00:51:18.480 until Congress passed the Wartime Revenue Act of October 1917. Never before had the 556 00:51:18.480 --> 00:51:22.480 The Federal Taxation affected so many Americans, so directly. 557 00:51:22.480 --> 00:51:30.480 Revenue Act of 1918 went further, increasing the total income tax load on American citizens by nearly 250% over the 1917 Act. 558 00:51:30.480 --> 00:51:35.480 The top bracket reached 77%, while the normal tax bracket rose to 6%. 559 00:51:35.480 --> 00:51:44.480 The burgeoning tax burden also included corporate income taxes, award states tax, excise tax, import tax, excess profits tax. 560 00:51:44.480 --> 00:51:50.400 The taxation legislation of World War I permanently altered the structure of American taxation. 561 00:51:50.400 --> 00:51:55.080 Not only did this legislation greatly elevate the importance of income tax, but it made 562 00:51:55.080 --> 00:52:00.200 the principle of the progressive tax a permanent fixture of the nation's tax system. 563 00:52:00.200 --> 00:52:04.320 On the eve of entering the war, personal and corporate income tax is constituted of only 564 00:52:04.320 --> 00:52:06.540 24% of the entire revenue figure. 565 00:52:06.540 --> 00:52:11.080 This figure rose sharply during the war and remained high afterwards, averaging 75% throughout 566 00:52:11.080 --> 00:52:13.100 the 1920s. 567 00:52:13.100 --> 00:52:19.460 World War tax receipts never again drop lower than five times the pre-war level. World War 568 00:52:19.460 --> 00:52:24.820 I thus catalyzed the transformation of the income tax, the most direct, intrusive of 569 00:52:24.820 --> 00:52:30.580 all forms of revenue extraction, into becoming the mainstay of federal financing. The bureaucratic 570 00:52:30.580 --> 00:52:34.820 growth that resulted from World War I was the obvious long-term import for the structure 571 00:52:34.820 --> 00:52:38.260 of the U.S. government. By the enhancement of power of the Presidency, the accompanied 572 00:52:38.260 --> 00:52:43.900 Expansion was even more significant. A series of legislative measures passed in 1916 and 573 00:52:43.900 --> 00:52:49.540 1917 gave Wilson administration unprecedented authority to intervene in the national economy. 574 00:52:49.540 --> 00:52:53.020 The National Defense Act compelled factories to sell their products to the government on 575 00:52:53.020 --> 00:52:58.660 a priority basis at prices determined by the Secretary of War. The Army Appropriations 576 00:52:58.660 --> 00:53:04.180 Act authorized the seizure of transportation. Taking a page from Lincoln, Wilson used this 577 00:53:04.180 --> 00:53:22.180 Thank you very much, John. I appreciate it. Hopefully these ideas might get us on one of these up channels for freedom in the future. 578 00:53:22.180 --> 00:53:23.180 Well, I hope so. 579 00:53:23.180 --> 00:53:27.180 Do you want to just quickly tell the story about what happened to your, was it your great uncle? 580 00:53:27.180 --> 00:53:37.760 My father's first cousin was a lawyer in Birmingham, a well-known trial lawyer, and he was at a 581 00:53:37.760 --> 00:53:42.260 dinner party, among what he thought were his close personal friends, and he made the statement 582 00:53:42.260 --> 00:53:47.620 that the so-and-so, Wilson, has tricked us into the First World War. 583 00:53:47.620 --> 00:53:54.220 And so he was indicted under the Sedition Act, which made it illegal to make any statement 584 00:53:54.220 --> 00:54:00.040 and a critical of the president and he was tried and defended by my grandfather and two 585 00:54:00.040 --> 00:54:05.300 other lawyers and was acquitted but it was on a technical basis that the statement was 586 00:54:05.300 --> 00:54:10.480 made about two days before the act was passed. 587 00:54:10.480 --> 00:54:16.180 So that's just an example of the type of prosecution that took place so that freedom of speech 588 00:54:16.180 --> 00:54:19.020 was only that which was friendly to the government. 589 00:54:19.020 --> 00:54:24.820 And a great thing, the NIA Commission investigated the First World War, unlike there was no 590 00:54:24.820 --> 00:54:29.140 investigation after the Second World War, and showed all of the drastic misstatements 591 00:54:29.140 --> 00:54:33.440 that were made and the economic reasons that America got into the war. 592 00:54:33.440 --> 00:54:37.700 And that resulted in the neutrality laws, which were passed in the thirties, which almost 593 00:54:37.700 --> 00:54:39.620 prevented us from getting into the Second World War. 594 00:54:39.620 --> 00:54:46.820 But those were, it was a brutal time of civil liberties and a brutal time on economic rights. 595 00:54:46.820 --> 00:55:08.820 John, I agree with what I'm doing. The whole focus of your discussion, but the only criticism I have is that it seems to me that a very common in the American government is to not only declare war, it's kind of a declare war internal. 596 00:55:08.820 --> 00:55:09.820 Right. 597 00:55:09.820 --> 00:55:20.820 And you see things like the war on poverty and certain war on drugs and so on and so forth also when you use this sort of side behind which you see continued orientation on privilege. 598 00:55:20.820 --> 00:55:30.820 Right. And I think that's become the motive is you declare war. And then that gives rise to all kind of, you know, necessity is the excuse of tyrants. 599 00:55:30.820 --> 00:55:39.820 And, you know, if you take conscription and say that's a legitimate thing of government, well, what isn't? 600 00:55:39.820 --> 00:55:46.820 I mean, once you accept that, that your son's going to be drafted, then why shouldn't I have to pay 77% of my income to help the war? 601 00:55:46.820 --> 00:55:49.820 You know, anything, any sacrifice is not enough. 602 00:55:49.820 --> 00:55:58.820 Which struck me was that's the reason something that was meant to be the door of al-Qaeda criticized violence and the love of your friends. 603 00:55:58.820 --> 00:56:00.820 And that's what had happened here. 604 00:56:00.820 --> 00:56:02.820 It happens in America frequently. 605 00:56:02.820 --> 00:56:04.820 It's been nice to know they were sent to prison for that. 606 00:56:04.820 --> 00:56:06.820 Right. 607 00:56:08.820 --> 00:56:15.820 In the war conference I know of, Eugene Sledge, your cousin, and Paul Fussell had both talked about their experiences in World War II. 608 00:56:15.820 --> 00:56:45.820 and it struck me in Bustle's speech especially that Vietnam with all the things that we hear about it about, you know, friendly fire and all the tragedies it's supposed to keep on, this wasn't uncommon in all the previous wars, it wasn't known and I find your comment about the media kind of interesting because to what degree has technology being able to put you right there on the spot had impact both making propaganda worse and at the same time 609 00:56:45.820 --> 00:56:52.340 Well, I think it helped us get out of Somalia the first time. You know, when they show that 610 00:56:52.340 --> 00:56:56.900 picture of dragging the American through the streets had a tremendous effect, I think, 611 00:56:56.900 --> 00:57:03.260 on American people. So it has its good and its bad as far as the methods by which the 612 00:57:03.260 --> 00:57:10.660 news media is used either to promote or to fight war. You know, the problem with discussing 613 00:57:10.660 --> 00:57:17.340 War is it especially if you've got a son or father or someone you've lost in a war. 614 00:57:17.340 --> 00:57:22.580 And it's almost too much pain to bear to try to investigate that war and see and come to 615 00:57:22.580 --> 00:57:28.480 a conclusion if that war was unnecessary then you know that loss is even more severe. 616 00:57:28.480 --> 00:57:34.380 And once you criticize war you're almost always considered being unpatriotic because that's 617 00:57:34.380 --> 00:57:37.860 the thing that you know we're going to fight for our freedom. 618 00:57:37.860 --> 00:58:07.860 and so it's, you almost have to find little windows of opportunity, like right now we don't have a major war when you talk about things like this, I may be prosecuted later for this, but it is a subject that's considered, quote, anti-patriotic or unsympathetic or something, but war is the essential, centralizing power and that, in my opinion, centralization power is the essential enemy of freedom. So, you know, it's, when you write 619 00:58:07.860 --> 00:58:16.860 The fight about the New Deal as being the event that changed America, I think it's compressing history a little too short in Spain. 620 00:58:16.860 --> 00:58:22.860 I know a lot of you have got to go. I don't want to keep anybody from a class. 621 00:58:22.860 --> 00:58:34.860 If war is the principal architect of centralization of government, is peace the principal architect of erosion of power from the central authority? 622 00:58:34.860 --> 00:58:38.420 Well, I think that peace gives you a chance. I mean, it's only in peacetime if we could 623 00:58:38.420 --> 00:58:43.780 probably have this talk right here. I mean, if there was a Vietnam going on right now 624 00:58:43.780 --> 00:58:48.620 and, you know, we would have this talk right here, we'd be considered un-American primarily. 625 00:58:48.620 --> 00:58:53.060 So I think peace gives you an opportunity, not necessarily lead to freedom, but it certainly 626 00:58:53.060 --> 00:58:58.060 reduces the restraints on which you can act to try to promote freedom.