The full title of my talk is actually The Empire Must Die If We Are to Reclaim Our Freedom
and Restore the Republic that was Envisioned by Our Founding Fathers.
Many who have studied the drastic decline of freedom in the 20th century trace the starting
point to the New Deal, a peacetime episode in American history. But my study of this phenomenon
1 has led me to a very different conclusion. I believe that the combination of three wars,
all of which America won, that occurred previous to the New Deal, completely changed the direction
of America by 180 degrees away from the plan of our founders. First of these wars was the
real crossroads for the American Republic, and this was the Civil War. The calamity was
was recognized at the time by the great American writer Herman Melville.
He published his poetry entitled Battle Pieces immediately after the war, primarily to show
that war should not be glorified, but also to look at the real cost of the victory by
the North in this particular war.
Melville was a Northern sympathizer.
Many of his friends and relatives fought as Union soldiers.
But he recognized, however, that this victory would probably create the Leviathan state
and the mortal wounding of the ideas of the founders.
In one of these poems entitled The Conflict of Convictions, he states, quote,
Power unannointed may come, dominion unsought by the free, but the founder's dream shall
flee.
I believe that the Civil War changed the direction of America by approximately 90 degrees, and
then a combination of the Spanish-American War and America's late entry into World War
I took it the remaining 90 degrees to take us to a full 180-degree change of direction.
The Spanish-American War violated the Founder's idea that we should not go to war in foreign
lands outside our own hemisphere, which would violate the implied corollary of our Monroe
doctrine.
And finally, America's late entry into World War I in Europe brought us the completion
of the repudiation of the ideas of our founders and a centralized government and centralized
governmental agencies in Washington.
These World War I agencies were merely renewed during the New Deal and were not original
with the New Deal.
There are many, many agencies such as the War Industries Boy that was just simply revitalized
and put back into place during the New Deal that had been present and born in World War
I. In a new book entitled War and the Rise of the State, the author Bruce Porter makes
a detailed analysis of the effect of war on Western civilization in general, but he also
investigates the effect of American wars on our freedom, and he states this, quote,
Throughout the history of the United States, war has been the primary impetus behind the growth and the development of the central state.
It has been the lever by which presidents and other national officials have bolstered the power of the state in the face of tenacious popular resistance.
It has been the wellspring of American nationalism and a spur to political and social change.
Prior to the Civil War in 1833, Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French observer of the American experiment with democracy, warned the new democratic nation about the disastrous effect of war on liberty.
In his classic work, Democracy in America, he stated,
quote, all those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and the shortest means to accomplish, end quote.
I think it is clear that the winners always write the history of the war and almost always this is done by what are called the court historians.
They write the history in order to justify the actions of the politicians and the special
economic interests who have a vested interest in centralizing government power and causing the war.
These court historians rarely give the real purpose or the ultimate cost of the war. They certainly
have not told the truth about how the American republic has been destroyed in the three wars
I've just mentioned or told the truth about the damage to liberty in the other wars of the 20th
Today we no longer have the republic created by our founding fathers, but instead we have
a nation and an empire created by the war and welfare century, the twentieth century.
Let's take a look at just a few of the pertinent facts about the present American empire.
Today we have approximately one million armed soldiers in our standing army on the American
But we have approximately 1.5 million armed forces spread over more than 138 nations throughout the world, many stationed at expensive American bases.
In 1990 alone, $30 billion was spent for covert operations of the CIA throughout other nations of the world.
of the World.
It has now been confirmed that the CIA has issued orders to carry out the political assassinations
of the leaders of five different foreign nations.
President of the United States now has the use of the CIA as his private paramilitary
armed force with virtually no control by Congress.
In an excellent new book entitled Presidential War Power by Lewis Fisher, he documents the
The CIA has sponsored guerrilla wars in 20 foreign nations, several of which, such as
Vietnam, led to the eventual use of regular armed forces of America.
The noted historian, English historian, Arnold Toynbee, was quoted in the New York Times
in May 7, 1971 as follows, quote, to most Europeans, I guess, America now looks like
the most dangerous country in the world.
In fact, the roles of the United States and Russia have been reversed in the eyes of much
of the world.
Today America has become a nightmare.
Toynbee based his conclusion primarily on the unjustified meddling of the CIA, which
has secretly intervened into the internal affairs of Europe, Latin America, Asia and
Africa.
We've reached a point today where it is widely advocated and accepted that the constitutional
requirement that Congress must declare war or authorize the president to use armed forces
is a provision which is now archaic and no longer required to be observed in these modern
times.
People advocating this idea point out that American presidents have frequently committed
armed forces to foreign lands without a declaration of war or authorization from Congress, and
And one of the primary examples these people usually cite is the example of the use of
armed forces to attack the Barbary Pirates in the Mediterranean Sea by President Jefferson.
What they fail to point out is that Congress at that time enacted ten different statutes
specifically authorizing the President to deal with the Barbary Pirates.
President Jefferson refused to take any action without specific authority from Congress.
Although there was no declaration of war, there was specific authority for the president to act.
This is just a thumbnail sketch of the present American Empire, but I think it's clear we
have violated many, many of the lessons of history as well as the very specific advice
of our founding fathers to get where we are today.
Shakespeare gives us one of these lessons of history when he talks about the oldest
trick of the trade of rulers, kings and dictators.
This trick has also been used widely by the democratically elected presidents of the United States.
You may recall that Shakespeare's King Henry IV, he advised his son, the future Henry V,
that he had launched a foreign war into the Holy Land which was completely spurious and
unnecessary.
However, Henry IV found that this action silenced his domestic critics and centralized so much
great power into his hands that it increased his ability to act and do what he wanted,
which is something he had not had the power to do during peacetime.
So his specific advice to his son was,
quote, therefore, my Harry,
be it thy course to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels.
It was because the framers of the American Constitution understood this old trick of the trade
as well as other lessons of history
which teach that liberty is diminished domestically in foreign wars,
even those wars you win,
and therefore they wanted to put strict limitations on the executive power to engage in wars.
They understood the doctrine of the separation of powers which was present in the English
Constitution where the power of the sword in the executive hand was separated from the
power of the purse in the legislative hand.
The English Civil War was fought over the point to maintain that separation.
However, the colonists and the framers understood that the powers of the executive are drastically
increased during times of war which is a threat to individual freedom and therefore they explicitly
put further restrictions on the executive by removing from him the power to declare or start
a war and gave this power exclusively to congress which was a major difference from the english system
it was a plan of the founders that only after both houses of congress had debated and declared war
or specifically authorized executive action for military purposes that the president became the
The President has always had the power to defend against a sudden attack without specific congressional authority.
But how many actual attacks on America have we had?
Listen to the words of the father of the Constitution, James Madison, as he explains the reasons for this extra limitation upon executive power.
Quote, Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because
it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
War is the parent of armies, and armies and debts and taxes are the known instruments
for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
End quote.
Madison also spoke about the specific war powers of the present, quote,
War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.
In war, physical force is to be created, and it is the executive will which is to direct it.
In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked, and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them.
In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied,
and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle.
The strongest passions and the most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast,
ambition, avarice, vanity, honourable or vain love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace."
In 1994, the Mises Institute held a conference in Atlanta, Georgia
To look at the cost to the American people, especially their loss of liberty, which had occurred in our victorious wars.
Speakers later submitted their papers for publication and as Lou told you,
Transaction Publishers of Rutgers University is publishing the book, which will be out next month, February 97.
The book includes a much expanded version of my talk today with numerous footnotes, so you can check these things out.
But it also includes about 20 other articles by outstanding speakers and writers that you know, such as Murray Rothbard, Paul Fussell, you may know, Ralph Raico, and many others, some others here today.
I think this book communicates some of the most important ideas that are necessary if we are to reclaim our liberty in the 21st century.
Let's take a look at the three wars which I think changed America in the wrong direction,
away from the ideas of our founders. I contend that all three of these wars were unnecessary
and could have been avoided by presidents who were committed to peace rather than war.
In our book, The Cost of War, Murray Rothbard analyzes the philosophical discussion which begins
with Saint Augustine concerning the question of what is a just war. He answers the question by
by stating that in America only two wars have met this philosophical definition.
These were the American War for the Independence from England and the War for Southern Independence
from the Union.
He did not think the Union cause was just, but the war is more widely known as the Civil
War and it is the most costly, far the more costly than any other since it took over 600,000
American lives.
These huge costs, including the loss of liberty for Americans, are stated to be justified
by the court historians because the purpose, they say, of the war was to abolish slavery.
We're never told that the war had such serious consequences to the ideas of the founders
that it virtually ended the American Republic.
I believe it's important to determine the real purpose of the war in order to realize
that its severe costs are not justified.
I do not believe that the purpose of the war was to abolish slavery and that slavery would
have ceased to exist in America as it did throughout the rest of the Western world in
several decades without any war taking place.
I also think that you can understand the real cause of the Civil War only if you study two
separate questions.
First, why did the South secede?
Primary reason the South seceded was not because it was trying to protect the immoral system
of slavery.
And there's no question that it was wrong just like segregation.
However, the Constitution protected slavery, especially through the fugitive slave law,
and the Supreme Court had reasserted the protection of slavery in the Dred Scott decision.
The North did not have enough power to amend the Constitution, but it did have enough power,
especially in the House of Representatives, to pass punitive tax laws which were primarily
the protective tariff.
And then the North had the further political power to vote for most of those taxes to be
be used in the North for internal improvements under the General Welfare Clause of the Constitution.
The South seceded because it could no longer control its destiny in Congress. Due to the
large number of immigrants flowing in from Europe to northern industries, the balance
of power in Congress strongly favored the North. This became evident in 1828 with the
passage of the punitive protective tariff, which was known as the tariff of abominations.
This remained a vital issue between the North and the South up until 1860. The South was
a very rich agricultural society but completely dependent on purchasing its manufactured goods
from outside of the region. With a protective tariff, Northern industries could charge exorbitant
prices for their products sold to the South. If the South refused to buy the products from
the North and insisted on buying them from England, then it had to pay the protective
Tariff. Over three-fourths of the entire protective tariff was paid by the South. Therefore,
whether the South purchased their manufactured goods from the North or paid the tariff and
bought their manufactured goods from England, most of the money ended up in the North. It
was because of this great injustice which the South could not prevent while in the Union
that it put in its Confederate Constitution, put in its Confederate Constitution the abolition
of the General Welfare Clause, it prohibited protective tariffs and it prohibited tax funds
from being used as internal improvements.
The second question is why did the North refuse to let the South go?
Was it for the purpose of abolishing slavery?
If the North had wanted to abolish slavery, it should have let the South secede.
You may recall that there was a small vociferous group known as the abolitionists who became
extremely unpopular in the North prior to the war.
Because under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison, they advocated that the North should
secede from the Union in order to abolish slavery. Garrison had correctly perceived that
a Northern secession would relieve it of the constitutional mandate to return fugitive
slaves to the South, and he further recognized that slavery could not long endure under those
circumstances. President Lincoln was very explicit that the abolition of slavery was
not the purpose of the war. He fully recognized that he had no authority to try to abolish
The issue regarding slavery between the North and the South before the Civil War was not
whether slavery should be abolished where it existed, but whether the system of slavery
should spread to the new western states and new territories.
This spread of slavery and the increase in the South's political power, if that occurred,
were the ideas that Lincoln opposed.
Listen to these words of Lincoln's first inaugural address before the war, quote, I
have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery
where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination
to do so. However, in that same speech, Lincoln specifically stated he would use force if
necessary to collect taxes. A year and a half after the war had already been in progress,
Richard Horace Greeley wrote an editorial in his New York Tribune advising Lincoln that
he should give the war a strong moral purpose by declaring that it was being fought to abolish
slavery.
Lincoln answered in writing and stated the following, quote, My paramount object in this
struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery.
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save
Some court historians have tried to convince the public that the Emancipation Proclamation
issued by Lincoln late in the war in 1863 shows that the purpose of the war was to abolish
slavery.
They completely ignore the fact that the proclamation did not even purport to free the slaves in
the four slave states which remained in the Union.
So slavery was not abolished in those states. Furthermore, in the succeeding states, it
exempted many, many counties which had remained loyal to the Union. So slavery was not abolished
there. Lincoln made it clear that the Emancipation Proclamation was merely a quote, emergency
war measure and without any issue of this, without any congressional approval. It was
designed to do two things. Number one, to promote a slave revolt in the South, which
Number two, to keep England from intervening in the war and breaking the blockade that the North had by making it appear that the war's purpose was to abolish slavery.
And it was completely successful in this respect and it prevented England from intervening.
Since England had led the battle throughout the world to abolish slavery, it could not afford to be perceived as protecting slavery by intervening in this war which was perceived, hopefully, by Lincoln would be perceived as one to abolish slavery.
of Bally's Slavery. Listen to Lincoln's words as to why he issued the Emancipation Proclamation,
quote, things had gone from bad to worse until I felt that we had reached the end of our
rope on the plan we were pursuing. We had about played our last card and we must change
our tactics or lose the game. I now determined upon the adoption of the Emancipation Policy,
President Lincoln specifically limited the cause of war to preserving the Union, but
this is only a partial answer and you must understand why certain people and certain
economic interests wanted to preserve the Union.
In fact, economic reasons play a major factor in almost every war, but rarely, if ever,
are those economic reasons mentioned as the cause for wars.
You must look at the fact that prior to the Civil War there were only two main sources
of income to the Federal Government.
80% came from the tariff and the remainder primarily came from land sales.
In order to get the nomination in Chicago and be elected in the general election, Lincoln
had to promise an extremely high protective tariff to get the votes of industrial centers
such as New Jersey and especially the vote of Pennsylvania with its iron and coal industries.
The high protective tariff was part of the platform on which he ran.
Lincoln kept his promise with the highest tariff in American history, the Morrill Tariff,
which was passed just prior to the bombardment of Fort Sumter.
Just imagine what would have happened especially in the short run to profits in northern industries
as well as the tax revenues in the north.
If the south had been allowed to secede and to be a free port country where they could
buy all of their manufactured goods from England without paying any tariff, Lincoln refused
to allow this to happen and instead deliberately chose war.
Charles Adams, who you will hear speak this afternoon, covers this subject of the tariff
and its impact and cause of the Civil War in two chapters of his excellent book, For
Good and Evil, and he's researching a new book on this subject alone, which I'm looking
forward to.
In regard however to Lincoln's choice of war rather than letting the South succeed, it's
important to remember that Congressman Lincoln had been a severe critic of President Polk
When Polk had ordered American troops into the disputed boundary between America and
Mexico, thereby provoking the Mexicans to fire the first shot and start the war, Congressman
Lincoln said that Polk caused an unnecessary and unconstitutional war.
This was an example that Lincoln never forgot.
President Lincoln was advised both by his Secretary of State Seward and by his top military
adviser, General Winfield Scott, that he should not attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter since
It would cause an unnecessary war. Secretary Seward advised him to continue to follow the
policy of President Buckhannon and not attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter, which was a key outpost
in the South to assure collection of tariffs. General Scott said that Fort Sumter could not
be protected indefinitely and therefore should be abandoned. In fact, Secretary Seward, who knew
the benefits that occur when you busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels, advised Lincoln
Lincoln instead to provoke a war either with France or with England, and with England he
could make a third attempt to take Canada.
Seward had also met frequently with the Confederate representatives in Washington and repeatedly
assured them that Lincoln would not attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter.
When Lincoln disregarded all of this top-level advice and followed the example of President
Polk and provoked the South into firing the first shot, it started the Civil War.
Later, Presidents McKinley, Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt would study how Lincoln maneuvered
the South into firing the first shot, and they would use those very same tactics during
their respective administrations.
However, our book, The Cost of War, is not primarily about the causes of war, but concentrates
on the cost, especially as to freedom.
Let's look briefly at some of the costs of the Civil War.
It brought America the first national income tax, which was clearly unconstitutional, but
but it took many years to get that court decision that it was unconstitutional but it set a
very important precedent, created the first internal revenue service which has become
the most oppressive government agency in American history.
The war took America off the gold standard through legal tender laws and through legal
tender laws forced Americans to use fiat paper money known as greenbacks.
A new national banking system, a forerunner to the Federal Reserve system was created
Reinstating a system that had been abolished by Presidents Jefferson and Jackson.
Over 80 percent of the war was financed through massive government debts, the first prominent
example of deficit spending.
The first national draft was instituted.
The writer Gore Vidal in his study of Lincoln points out that President Lincoln became America's
first dictator, and he states, quote, The memory of Lincoln was and is a constant stimulus
to the ambitious Chief Magistrate, who knows that once the nation is at war, his powers
are unlimited while the possibilities of personal glory are immeasurable."
The truly horrible violation of civil liberties, which occurred at the hands of Lincoln, occurred
primarily in the North.
This is fully covered in a new book written by Martin Neely, who is the current director
of the Lincoln Museum and a strong supporter of Lincoln.
The title of his book is The Fate of Liberty. He analyzes all of the transgressions and
primarily focuses on the study of 13,000 trials where American citizens in the North were
arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced under martial law even though the civil courts were
readily available. These people were not allowed any due process of law and the writ of habeas
corpus was unconstitutionally suspended by Lincoln. They were charged merely with being
To many contemporaries of Lincoln, he was labeled America's Robespierre because of his horrible violation of the civil liberties of the people and the expansive use of the presidential powers.
However, Neely admits these transgressions of civil liberties occurred, and he cannot deny that Lincoln became a dictator.
But he says that this is all justified because the purpose of the war was to abolish slavery.
In 1953, Russell Kirk observed part of the tragic cost of the war by stating in his book,
The Conservative Mind, that the suppression of the South so injured the ideas of the limited
government and free market economics that it took over a hundred years for these ideas
to begin to make a recovery.
And even then in 1953, there was no recovery in the popular mind for these ideas.
He stated, quote, the influence of the Virginia mind upon American politics expired in the
The Jeffersonian scholar, Merrill D. Peterson, in his book published in 1960 entitled, Jefferson
Image in the American Mind, devotes an entire study to the fact that the influence of Jefferson
in American politics ended with the Civil War.
And from that point forward, it has been the ideas of Alexander Hamilton, who became the
predominant political theorist and model for Americans to follow.
The next war which has proven so detrimental to the plan of the founders was the Spanish-American
War, when America first began to acquire its foreign empire.
The idea of acquiring Cuba had been around for a long time prior to this war and was
popular among many members of Congress during the administration of President Grover Cleveland.
An unusual event mentioned in the book by Louis Fisher, the presidential war power,
which I mentioned earlier, shows that some of the members of Congress were itching for
War, and they asked for an audience with President Cleveland and announced to him,
quote, we have about decided to declare war against Spain over the Cuban question.
Conditions there are intolerable.
Whereupon President Cleveland responded, quote, there will be no war with Spain over Cuba
while I am president.
One of the members of Congress protested that the Constitution gave Congress the right to
declare war, whereupon Cleveland answered that the Constitution also made him commander
and Chief of the Armed Forces, and he stated, quote, I will not mobilize the army, end quote.
This incident demonstrates part of the benefit of the separation of powers provided in the
Constitution.
And I think it's probably the only instance in American history where the President was
restraining Congress from declaring war.
But Congress later found a very willing and eager participant with President McKinley.
The true purpose of this war became evident when McKinley sent the American Navy to the
of the Philippines in order to support the local rebels there, who were trying to throw
off their Spanish rulers.
After supporting the rebels in their successful revolt against Spain, McKinley ordered American
guns turned on the rebels themselves, murdering thousands and thousands of them in cold blood.
America acquired its first foothold in Asia for its Pacific Empire by taking the Philippines
and Guam from Spain, which allowed American ships to have co-ing stations for foreign
Trade with China, which was the real purpose of the war. McKinley ruled the Philippines,
Guam, Puerto Rica, and Cuba as a military dictator without any congressional authority.
Furthermore, while Congress was out of session and without any authorization from Congress,
McKinley sent 5,000 armed troops to China to assist other European nations in putting
down the Boxer Rebellion, which was a rebel movement in China to remove foreign powers
from its Soul.
Mark Twain, who originally supported the Spanish-American War because he thought that its purpose was
to support Cuban rebels against Spain, eventually saw that its real purpose was trying to establish
an empire in the Pacific.
It was then he made his famous statement, quote, We cannot maintain an empire in the
Orient and maintain a republic in America.
In an excellent study of this war and its effect, Harper's magazine editor Walter Karp
states in his book, Politics of War, the following, What McKinley envisioned for the American
Republic was a genuine new order of things, a modern, centralized order, elitist in every
way, profoundly alien to the spirit of the Republic.
Of necessity, therefore, the key to McKinley's grand design for national unity and cohesion
was the Republican large policy. It was the only way to supplant the Republican spirit
with the spirit of nationalism and replace the love of liberty with love of the flag
to make the nation a political presence strong enough to overwhelm the Republic and supplant
it in the popular affections. Only by transferring America into an active world power in contact
with considerable foreign powers at as many points as possible could the nation become
from a unifying force that McKinley and the Republican oligarchy intended to make of it."
The main provocation that the court historians have stated caused this war was that the Spanish
sank the American battleship to Maine. McKinley had ordered this battleship in the Havana
harbor as a provocation to be a sitting duck with Spanish attack. McKinley and the war-mongering
press maintained at the time that the Spanish fired the first shot when they sank the ship
by placing a bomb outside the hull. However, the naval study published in 1976 by H.D.
Rickover entitled, How the Battleship Maine was Destroyed, shows conclusively that the
explosion occurred from within the ship and therefore could not have been done by the
Spanish. The sinking of the battleship Maine caused the loss of lives of several hundred
American sailors and served as the primary justification for McKinley asking Congress
for Declaration of War.
However, it was America's very late entry into World War I under the misguided leadership
of President Wilson, when America's politicians completed the repudiation and sent troops
– the repudiation of the ideas of the Founding Fathers – and sent troops to the trenches
of France for a bloody debacle which changed the course not only of America but of all
Western civilization.
By the time of America's entry into World War I, the ideas of Jefferson, probably our
Our greatest founder had completely disappeared from the political consciousness of America
because of the Civil War. However, listen to Jefferson's explicit warnings about why
America should not engage in wars in Europe. Quote, I have deemed it fundamental for the
United States never to take an active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political
interests are entirely distinct from ours. They are mutual jealousies. They are balance
of Power. Their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government are all
foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the
destruction of labor, property, and lives of the people. On our part, never have a people
had so favorable a chance of trying the opposite system of peace and fraternity with mankind
and the direction of all our means and faculties to the purpose of improvement instead of destruction.
Again, the cause for America's late entry into this war has been hidden from the American
people and deleted from our textbooks.
A book entitled The Lusitania by Colin Simpson shows that the German embassy warned Secretary
of State William James Bryan that the British ocean liner, The Lusitania, had a false manifest
and that it was actually carrying illegal contraband and therefore was a lawful target
for German submarines.
Bryan attempted to get President Wilson to warn the American passengers not to sail,
and because Wilson refused, Bryan eventually resigned. The German industry did put ads
in the paper before the ship sailed warning the Americans not to sail, and that was considered
a hoax by the press. This failure to warn Americans about Wilson led to the loss of
over 100 American lives when the German submarines sank to Lusitania, but it did provide the
The emotional cause for America's late entry into the war a short time later, blaming German
submarine warfare tactics.
The private papers of President Wilson and his main advisor, Colonel House, show that
Wilson had this insatiable desire to help design the New World Order, which would emerge
from the peace process in Europe.
And Wilson recognized that he would not be a part of this process unless America was
a major participant in that war.
There were also very powerful financial interests in America, particularly the House of J.P.
Morgan, which had made substantial loans and established substantial credit for England
and her allies.
They wanted to make sure that the war was won unconditionally, and they also wanted
to make sure that Germany would pay reparations for its war damage so that the allies could
repay their loans.
One of the greatest mistakes in World War I was the horrible Treaty of Versailles which
ended that war.
America's late entry into the war prevented a failing negotiated settlement with a very
vigorous Germany which had in effect defeated Russia and now only had to fight one war on
its western front against two badly injured allies, France and England.
Germany had become a threat to the economic prosperity of the British Empire after 1870
and up into the 20th century.
And this is the principal reason for war on England's behalf.
However, with America's entry into the war, the balance of power completely shifted because
Because President and then President Wilson promised that his 14 points would be the basis
on which a peace treaty would be negotiated.
Germany and Russia were excluded from the conference table and a Carthaginian treaty
entirely punitive toward Germany took place.
It imposed such harsh terms upon Germany that it was clearly recognized among the many allies
at the time and certainly by Germany that unless the treaty was eventually revised,
Germany would have to go to war to remove the burdens of the treaty.
I think as a footnote, I think the only thing I've ever agreed with by John Maynard Keynes
was his statement that the Versailles Treaty was unfair to Germany and would provoke a
war.
The only way to understand how Hitler rose to power through the democratic process and
why Germany invaded Poland is to understand how horrible the Treaty of Versailles was
and how, in fact, it was to Germany.
You would think that America had learned its lesson by the horrible Treaty of Versailles
and what it did to help cause World War II.
But then look at what Franklin Roosevelt did in the conferences of Tehran and Yalta, which
ended World War II, while America won that war militarily.
It lost the peace and favor and enlargement of communist power in Russia and expansion
of communist power in Central and Eastern Europe.
Getting back to World War I, the whole mindset of Western civilization was changed by World
of World War I, and this remained in effect throughout the remainder of the 20th century.
The following statement by Italian dictator Mussolini, who, by the way, was one of Winston
Churchill's great heroes at the time he made the statement and continued to be one of his
heroes up until Mussolini betrayed the Allies.
This statement captures the spirit of the 20th century, and I think as you listen to
the ideas of Mussolini, you can close your eyes and actually picture Teddy Roosevelt
saying this, quote, fascism believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual
peace. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts a stamp
of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it. It may be expected that
this will be the century of authority, a century of the left, a century of fascism, for if
The 19th century was a century of individualism. It may be expected that this will be the century
of collectivism, and hence the century of the state. For fascism, the growth of empire,
that is to say the expansion of the nation, is the essential manifestation of vitality
and its opposite sign of decay and death." The end result of World War II and the Treaty
of Versailles was to replace individualism with collectivism.
It brought communism to Russia, fascism to Italy, Nazism to Germany, and state capitalism
to America.
It created the War and Welfare 20th Century.
Bruce Porter, again in his study of the cost of World War I to America and specifically
the tax consequences, points out that the income tax which was passed as a constitutional
amendment in 1913 was a very, very low tax.
But it rose sharply during World War I and became a permanent fixture.
He points out that federal tax receipts have never again dropped lower than five times
the pre-World War I level.
And also, the progressive rate feature of the income tax was permanently instituted
as a result of World War I.
The damage to civil liberties was immense under President Wilson through the use of
the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918.
One example among thousands that I could cite here is the alleged unpatriotic statements
of Rose Pastor Stokes who wrote a letter to the Kansas City Star which stated, quote,
No government which is for profiteers can also be for the people.
I am for the people while the government is for the profiteers.
Judge Falkenberg sentenced her to ten years in the penitentiary for that one statement
and stated to her in the sentencing that the only free speech was that which is, quote,
Friendly to the government, friendly to the war, friendly to the policies of the government."
President Wilson then instructed the Attorney General to institute treason proceedings against
the publisher of that paper. Wilson became so enamored with his powers under the Sedition
Act that after the war and as late as 1920, he vetoed a bill which would have abolished
the espionage and sedition acts. In summary, I think the presidents who are guilty of completely
and the Changing the Direction of America Away from the Republic were Lincoln, McKinley
and Wilson through the unnecessary wars they manipulated America into.
While they set the new direction and paved the road, it was Franklin Roosevelt and his
four terms who took America further down that road than any other president through the
combination of his New Deal and his manipulation of America into World War II.
Let me say in conclusion that if we as Americans are to ever regain our heritage of freedom,
we must abolish the empire and reverse the growth of the Leviathan state.
Congress must reassert its constitutional war powers over the president and stop the
imperial presidents in general.
We must eliminate the bloated bureaucracy of government agencies which have arisen under
these executive powers.
And as Americans, we must change our love of nation and empire to love of our Republic.
And we must change our love of the flag to love of liberty.
The writer James Russell Lowell was once asked how long he thought the United States would
endure.
He stated, quote, so long as the ideas of the founders remain dominant.
Senator Daniel Webster issued a stern warning for future generations of America when he
and he stated, quote, miracles do not cluster, hold on to the Constitution of the United
States of America for which it stands and the Republic for which it stands.
What has happened once in 6,000 years may never happen again.
Hold on to your Constitution, for if the American Constitution shall fail, there will be anarchy
throughout the world.
I believe that the greatest achievement of Western civilization was the discovery of freedom
through the Effective Limitation on the Power of the State, and I believe that the American
Founding Fathers provided the best formula to limit that power. I believe further that
war is the quickest and surest way to increase the power of the state, and therefore war,
even victorious war, is the greatest threat to freedom. As we approach the 21st century,
I think the most important activity to be engaged in is the communication of the ideas
of Freedom so that Americans will come to understand these principles again.
But as we come to the end of this war and welfare century, I'm actually optimistic about
the future of freedom in America in the next century.
I believe we're seeing the beginning stages of a very active intellectual interest in
restoring the ideas of the Founding Fathers and that there's a real renaissance of freedom
ahead of us.
The Mises Institute is one of the examples of why I believe this is happening and the
is in the forefront of this revolution. For 150 years, socialism has captured the imagination
of most of our intellectuals, most of the academics and the medium. However, these ideas
have now proven to be absolutely false and unworkable. I also believe that the American
people, when armed with the knowledge as well as the solution, their will is strong and
even irresistible. We still have the means by which to change and to restrain our government
and thereby restore liberty in America, but to reclaim the American dream for our future,
we should look back to our beginnings to see what made America great and its people free.