WEBVTT NOTE Economic Tools for Understanding the War 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:13.000 Okay, let's get started with this material. As you said, the introduction is quite extensive. It's quite important. It's not something that can be overlooked, but we'll have to move through it fairly quickly. 2 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:25.000 We're at the point right now where we're looking at the economics we need to know in order to basically make sense of the rest of the book. 3 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:33.000 And as George says, you can make sense of just about any kind of economic argument based on these simple concepts. 4 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:41.000 So when the editor of this project talked to Bob Eeklin and I about it, he said, 5 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:50.000 you know, you're going to need some basic economics in here so that people can follow along. 6 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:57.000 Well, it turns out that my co-author, Bob Eakland, has written a textbook in economics, 7 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:01.480 and I think he's in his seventh edition, so it's something he's extremely good at. 8 00:01:01.480 --> 00:01:07.840 And the reviews of the book so far have all mentioned the fact that the economics presented 9 00:01:07.840 --> 00:01:14.400 in here is one of the best presentations that the reviewers have ever seen. 10 00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:17.760 And so we thought that people would just skip over this and go right to the meat of the 11 00:01:17.760 --> 00:01:33.360 The first concept is actually three concepts, opportunity, cost, specialization and trade. 12 00:01:33.360 --> 00:01:44.120 Human beings have benefited from about 10,000 years of increasing growth and economic development 13 00:01:44.120 --> 00:01:54.840 because of specialization and trade. We've gone from completely independent hunter-gatherer 14 00:01:54.840 --> 00:02:05.680 types to becoming sophisticated specialists and traders. Opportunity cost, and I'll define 15 00:02:05.680 --> 00:02:15.240 I'll explain this in just a second, but opportunity cost is the proper basis for specialization 16 00:02:15.240 --> 00:02:16.240 and trade. 17 00:02:16.240 --> 00:02:21.680 In other words, if you're doing things according to the opportunity cost of production, then 18 00:02:21.680 --> 00:02:27.940 your specialization and your trading will benefit you and you'll get more prosperous 19 00:02:27.940 --> 00:02:36.340 Research over time, whereas exploiters of resources tend to fail because they're not 20 00:02:36.340 --> 00:02:39.860 basing their decisions on real opportunity costs. 21 00:02:39.860 --> 00:02:42.480 They're just exploiting the resources. 22 00:02:42.480 --> 00:02:47.520 They're just exploiting their workforce or they're just exploiting the natural resources. 23 00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:50.820 A good example of this is on Easter Island. 24 00:02:50.820 --> 00:02:54.980 Remember, you might have seen the documentaries on Easter Island. 25 00:02:54.980 --> 00:03:01.980 It's a small island in the Pacific off of South America, and there's these giant stone carvings 26 00:03:01.980 --> 00:03:06.540 of heads, and there's hundreds and hundreds of these heads. 27 00:03:06.540 --> 00:03:12.740 It's just remarkable that primitive economies and societies could produce them, but what 28 00:03:12.740 --> 00:03:19.380 happened to them in the process was that they used up all of the trees on the island in 29 00:03:19.380 --> 00:03:26.100 In order to produce all of those giant stones, or sculptures, or whatever you want to call 30 00:03:26.100 --> 00:03:30.980 them, and in essence, they destroyed their economy in the process. 31 00:03:30.980 --> 00:03:40.100 So they exploited their timber resources in order to engage in this idolatry, and it really 32 00:03:40.100 --> 00:03:43.620 cost them, because nobody was considering, hey, what are we going to use these trees 33 00:03:43.620 --> 00:03:44.620 for? 34 00:03:44.620 --> 00:04:08.620 We need them for fire, we need them for housing, we need them for, in some cases, food, and so exploiters like that always fail, but individual property owners who must take account of the opportunity cost of their resources can efficiently calculate and use those resources effectively. 35 00:04:08.620 --> 00:04:16.620 Opportunity cost is the highest value you give up when you make a choice. 36 00:04:16.620 --> 00:04:25.620 So when we look at the Civil War and you look at a resource like iron or steel, in this case it was iron, 37 00:04:25.620 --> 00:04:36.620 you can use iron for railroads or nails, but if you use them for those resources you wouldn't have as much for things like guns and bullets. 38 00:04:36.620 --> 00:04:48.620 You can use fabric for uniforms or you can also use it for dresses and clothing for the civilian population. 39 00:04:48.620 --> 00:04:59.620 In terms of labor, you can have people join the army or work on the farms and possibly stay in a militia or something like that. 40 00:04:59.620 --> 00:05:08.940 So there's alternative uses of all the resources both north and south. How each 41 00:05:08.940 --> 00:05:16.940 side puts those resources to work is a critical question. It's not just how much 42 00:05:16.940 --> 00:05:22.100 or where or how often, but how those resources are assigned. Are they going to 43 00:05:22.100 --> 00:05:27.500 be assigned on the basis of opportunity cost or not? If you're not doing it on the 44 00:05:27.500 --> 00:05:46.500 And on the basis of opportunity cost, you're going to end up wasting resources. And if you're wasting resources, at a critical point in time, like a war, chances are you're going to lose. 45 00:05:46.500 --> 00:05:58.500 As a matter of fact, one of the ways of very simply putting the general argument embedded in this book 46 00:05:58.500 --> 00:06:12.500 is that we feel that it was Confederate government policy that caused a misallocation of resources 47 00:06:12.500 --> 00:06:23.500 on the part of the South made them so inefficient and wasteful that ultimately that determined the outcome of the war. 48 00:06:23.500 --> 00:06:28.500 So in the first class I mentioned, you know, how did the Union do it? 49 00:06:28.500 --> 00:06:35.500 Most people didn't give them much odds that the Union could actually defeat the South. 50 00:06:35.500 --> 00:06:39.500 I mean, certainly they could stay independent, there was no problem doing that. 51 00:06:39.500 --> 00:06:47.500 But actually, subduing the South was pretty much out of the question. 52 00:06:47.500 --> 00:06:58.500 And again, so we feel that it was really Confederate policy defeating the interest of Southerners 53 00:06:58.500 --> 00:07:05.500 in terms of their secession and their desire to set up an independent nation and all the rest. 54 00:07:09.500 --> 00:07:19.660 A couple examples, drafting soldiers. When you're drafting soldiers, you're eliminating 55 00:07:19.660 --> 00:07:27.340 opportunity costs from the picture. You're not saying, we'll offer a hundred dollars 56 00:07:27.340 --> 00:07:33.680 for someone to become a soldier today, to fight in our army, so that anybody who feels 57 00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:37.820 like a hundred dollars is worth it can join up and everybody who thinks, you know, I can 58 00:07:37.820 --> 00:07:51.820 If you want to make more money than that, shooing horses, or making holsters, or growing cotton, or whatever it happens to be. 59 00:07:51.820 --> 00:07:58.820 So drafting soldiers is not allocating resources on the basis of opportunity cost. 60 00:07:58.820 --> 00:08:05.820 And when you're drafting soldiers, you tend to use too many of them. 61 00:08:05.820 --> 00:08:20.820 If a government can just come in and say, I need 100,000 soldiers, put all the names of all 18-year-old males in a hat, and the first 100,000 of them are going in the army. 62 00:08:20.820 --> 00:08:28.820 That's a draft. But the politicians or Congress could say, 200,000, 300,000. 63 00:08:28.820 --> 00:08:34.820 The amount they're paying doesn't have to go up to encourage more people in. 64 00:08:34.820 --> 00:08:39.820 They can offer any amount of money or no amount of money at all. 65 00:08:39.820 --> 00:08:46.820 So drafting soldiers tends to mean too many soldiers can be allocated to the army 66 00:08:46.820 --> 00:08:53.820 and every soldier allocated to the army means one less person back on the farm growing food, 67 00:08:53.820 --> 00:09:01.580 One less person raising cattle, raising horses, grinding wheat or whatever it happens to be. 68 00:09:01.580 --> 00:09:06.520 Every time you take a soldier out, you make the domestic economy less productive. 69 00:09:06.520 --> 00:09:13.680 And also, there's a general tendency in history, you guys may have some examples of this, where 70 00:09:13.680 --> 00:09:19.560 drafted armies, where generals will tend to use too many soldiers and they'll be willing 71 00:09:19.560 --> 00:09:28.160 going to see the soldiers rush headlong into battle into extreme risk with knowing that 72 00:09:28.160 --> 00:09:34.280 many, many of them are going to die because they can always simply draft some more. 73 00:09:34.280 --> 00:09:39.780 So drafting soldiers seems like a straightforward thing, but there's a big cost to it on the 74 00:09:39.780 --> 00:10:08.780 The South, and to a lesser extent the North, also confiscated resources, or paid below market prices, so the troop would come into somebody's farm and confiscate food, confiscate feed for their horses, and pay a set amount, which would be below the market price for those goods. 75 00:10:08.780 --> 00:10:38.780 and then of course if you're confiscating resources, you'd be using too many. You would be wasting resources. You can just think of yourself, if you had grand political control over something and you could just go into Walmart with the government backing you up and saying, I'm hereby confiscating four tires and an oil change. If you had that power to go into any store and to confiscate resources, you would probably use too many. 76 00:10:38.780 --> 00:11:08.780 And finally, the example of inflation. Inflation also is really ignoring opportunity cost and reality, in a sense. Inflation is where the government simply prints up money to spend on goods and services that it wants. Now, if you're going to spend money on goods and services, you're probably going to waste a lot of resources as well. You're probably going to waste a lot of resources as well. You're probably going to waste a lot of resources as well. 77 00:11:08.780 --> 00:11:25.780 Now if government has the ability to just print up money rather than having to go to the taxpayer and say we need to take some of your resources and we hope you vote for us again, politicians don't like to do that. 78 00:11:25.780 --> 00:11:33.780 With inflation government and the military can become too big or much bigger than it otherwise would. 79 00:11:33.780 --> 00:12:03.780 lead to a lot of waste and it can zap resources out of the private sector. So opportunity cost is very, very important. The division of labor, we don't need to go into this at great length. The specialization in division of labor basically means that people divide up the work of producing goods. They specialize in certain 80 00:12:03.780 --> 00:12:33.780 and then they trade what they produce with other people. The grand effect of this is like getting extra wealth. Imagine a country like Canada, for example, where it's easy to grow wheat, but it's very difficult to grow nutmeg. To grow nutmeg in Canada, you have to build giant 81 00:12:33.780 --> 00:12:55.780 and so on. However, on the Caribbean island of Grenada, it's very difficult to grow wheat, effectively, yet it's very easy to grow nutmeg. It grows by itself, essentially. Now, would it make sense for Canada to have to produce its own wheat and nutmeg, while Grenada produces wheat and nutmeg? 82 00:12:55.780 --> 00:13:02.020 Now, would it make sense for Canada to have to produce its own wheat and nutmeg, while 83 00:13:02.020 --> 00:13:09.380 Grenada produces its own wheat and its own nutmeg? Well, allowing the two countries to 84 00:13:09.380 --> 00:13:16.980 specialize and then allowing them to trade means that Canada can produce all of Canada's 85 00:13:16.980 --> 00:13:24.980 wheat, all of Grenada's wheat, and then some. While Grenada can produce all of its nutmeg, 86 00:13:24.980 --> 00:13:31.800 all of Canada's nutmeg and then some. So it's like getting free additional resources 87 00:13:31.800 --> 00:13:41.760 which make you grow wealthier. 88 00:13:41.760 --> 00:13:46.880 Supply and demand. 89 00:13:46.880 --> 00:13:49.740 It says it all. 90 00:13:49.740 --> 00:13:53.980 The laws of supply and demand basically 91 00:13:53.980 --> 00:14:01.820 doesn't tell us what economizing behavior is all about. The Law of Demand simply states 92 00:14:01.820 --> 00:14:09.820 that as prices rise we reduce our consumption and at lower prices we increase our consumption 93 00:14:09.820 --> 00:14:18.080 of a particular product. And the Law of Supply is just the opposite. If prices rise in a 94 00:14:18.080 --> 00:14:24.720 in the Marketplace, suppliers will be willing to provide more of the product into the Marketplace. 95 00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:31.720 But as prices fall, suppliers don't have as great of an incentive to supply, and as a 96 00:14:31.720 --> 00:14:40.720 result they'll cut back their production and what they're willing to sell into the Marketplace. 97 00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:47.440 Now, there's also in this section a little discussion of substitutes and complements, 98 00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:49.940 as well as Relative Prices. 99 00:14:49.940 --> 00:14:53.540 I want you to have plenty of opportunity to read that section over. 100 00:14:53.540 --> 00:14:57.140 When we come to the issue of relative prices, 101 00:14:57.140 --> 00:14:59.160 I'm going to go into an 102 00:14:59.160 --> 00:15:02.860 in-depth discussion of it, so I'm going to leave that 103 00:15:02.860 --> 00:15:04.740 issue aside 104 00:15:04.740 --> 00:15:07.420 because it's a little complex 105 00:15:07.420 --> 00:15:11.360 to go from beginning to end at this point in time. 106 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:14.340 Likewise, the quantity theory of money 107 00:15:14.340 --> 00:15:17.380 is simply about inflation. 108 00:15:17.380 --> 00:15:47.380 and the simple quantity theory of money is that as more money comes into an economy, the prices of goods and services rise in general and if there's a deflation of the quantity of money, prices in the economy fall. This is a natural, equilibrating mechanism. Most of the time, we don't even really 109 00:15:47.380 --> 00:16:05.380 I don't really recognize it going on because there's not as much change in money and prices, but in war, when both sides are inflating like crazy, this becomes a very important issue, and it also becomes more complex. 110 00:16:05.380 --> 00:16:14.420 And finally, in our toolbox, we have the concept of rent seeking and interest groups. 111 00:16:14.420 --> 00:16:24.100 This is something that's almost devoid in a lot of civil war history. 112 00:16:24.100 --> 00:16:28.960 You know, in wartime, you're not supposed to break into factions. 113 00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:43.680 You're supposed to be united, but the real use of this tool is in looking at why we split 114 00:16:43.680 --> 00:16:53.320 up north and south in the first place. Rent seeking sounds like a funny term, the term 115 00:16:53.320 --> 00:16:58.160 most often used for the price you pay for an apartment, right? Well, this is a different 116 00:16:58.160 --> 00:17:00.720 definition of rent 117 00:17:00.720 --> 00:17:05.000 and basically what we're talking about here is using the political process 118 00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:09.160 of a way of obtaining profits or wealth 119 00:17:09.160 --> 00:17:13.120 basically using the political process to get your hands on some money 120 00:17:13.120 --> 00:17:15.040 in some form or fashion 121 00:17:15.040 --> 00:17:17.400 and here 122 00:17:17.400 --> 00:17:20.000 the issues of tariff protectionism 123 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:23.680 of government contracts and public works projects 124 00:17:23.680 --> 00:17:26.680 or even tax reform 125 00:17:26.680 --> 00:17:31.100 come into play. 126 00:17:31.100 --> 00:17:33.300 Interest groups 127 00:17:33.300 --> 00:17:37.000 is a little more understandable in the modern sense. 128 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:39.120 Interest groups are simply 129 00:17:39.120 --> 00:17:44.720 or usually organizations with well-defined economic interests. 130 00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:47.960 The steel producers, for example, 131 00:17:47.960 --> 00:17:49.960 are well-defined 132 00:17:49.960 --> 00:17:53.960 economic interests. All steel producers, 133 00:17:53.960 --> 00:17:59.560 According to the law of supply, like higher prices and they don't like lower prices. 134 00:17:59.560 --> 00:18:01.520 So they're all united in that. 135 00:18:01.520 --> 00:18:08.280 And anything that will raise steel prices is in all of their interest. So they can work together 136 00:18:08.280 --> 00:18:11.720 voluntarily, but 137 00:18:11.720 --> 00:18:13.600 what they're doing is working 138 00:18:13.600 --> 00:18:15.200 the political process 139 00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:17.940 to drive prices higher. 140 00:18:17.940 --> 00:18:23.120 Textile owners and workers, postal workers, public school teachers, 141 00:18:23.120 --> 00:18:26.360 There's an endless list of interest groups. 142 00:18:26.360 --> 00:18:31.120 Lobbying groups in Washington DC, for example, are all interest groups. 143 00:18:31.120 --> 00:18:36.040 Gun owners, rights, 144 00:18:36.040 --> 00:18:39.200 environmentalism, all sorts of 145 00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:43.000 well-defined economic interests. 146 00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:47.040 An important point about this particular section 147 00:18:47.040 --> 00:18:57.040 is that politicians are rational. 148 00:18:57.040 --> 00:18:59.040 Politicians are rational. 149 00:18:59.040 --> 00:19:04.040 Voters are rational. 150 00:19:04.040 --> 00:19:05.040 And we're going to find, 151 00:19:05.040 --> 00:19:07.040 especially in this opening chapter, 152 00:19:07.040 --> 00:19:13.040 chapter one, that instead of being an irrational, 153 00:19:13.040 --> 00:19:43.040 illogical, inevitable catastrophe, which the Civil War was a catastrophe, we can see it as a rational series of cause and effect events, where politicians were making decisions in a unique political environment, in fact this is the number one thing that at the end of the introduction we list ten things 154 00:19:43.040 --> 00:19:51.640 that we hope the reader learns. And the first thing is that the Civil War was not an unexplainable 155 00:19:51.640 --> 00:20:02.800 event, that we can know some very specific things about it. However, what this also implies 156 00:20:02.800 --> 00:20:09.800 is that democracy may not be all it's cracked up for. 157 00:20:09.800 --> 00:20:13.440 Democracy in this case 158 00:20:13.440 --> 00:20:16.120 was obviously not up to the task 159 00:20:16.120 --> 00:20:22.960 of keeping the peace. 160 00:20:22.960 --> 00:20:26.920 And so in the modern context, 161 00:20:26.920 --> 00:20:30.180 at least what we hear on the television, 162 00:20:30.180 --> 00:20:33.320 it would seem as if democracy 163 00:20:33.320 --> 00:20:34.900 is almost 164 00:20:34.900 --> 00:20:38.740 the paramount virtue of society 165 00:20:38.740 --> 00:20:42.240 that democracy is almost a religious 166 00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:46.920 goal of society 167 00:20:46.920 --> 00:20:49.280 but far from 168 00:20:49.280 --> 00:20:51.080 that sort of 169 00:20:51.080 --> 00:20:52.480 utopian 170 00:20:52.480 --> 00:20:54.220 view of democracy 171 00:20:54.220 --> 00:20:56.160 what we really find 172 00:20:56.160 --> 00:20:57.540 is that democracy 173 00:20:57.540 --> 00:21:00.100 is a very messy thing 174 00:21:00.100 --> 00:21:05.540 The second point that we hope you learn is that economic knowledge is useful for understanding 175 00:21:05.540 --> 00:21:07.860 the Civil War. 176 00:21:07.860 --> 00:21:16.900 The third point is that ideology is also vital to understanding history, as well as those 177 00:21:16.900 --> 00:21:21.180 economic interests that are behind ideology. 178 00:21:21.180 --> 00:21:34.180 Fourth, the grand battles, the heroism and the military tactics of the war are all the more entertaining aspects of the Civil War. 179 00:21:34.180 --> 00:21:45.180 Those are where the vast bulk of the books have been written and where the vast number of TV shows and movies have been done about those particular aspects of the war. 180 00:21:45.180 --> 00:21:52.180 What we see, and what we want you to learn, is that the key thing was resource allocation. 181 00:21:52.180 --> 00:21:55.180 Resource allocation was the key. 182 00:21:55.180 --> 00:22:00.180 In this regard, you have to rank Gone with the Wind up pretty high on the ladder, 183 00:22:00.180 --> 00:22:09.180 in terms of the fictional component of Civil War history, in that there was a lot of economic content. 184 00:22:09.180 --> 00:22:13.180 There was a lot of the politics going on behind the scenes. 185 00:22:13.180 --> 00:22:23.820 and there was a great deal of the home front at issue in that particular movie and book. 186 00:22:23.820 --> 00:22:31.700 Fifth, the war at sea was a key to the outcome of the war, the blockade was a key to the 187 00:22:31.700 --> 00:22:38.540 Union victory and that the land war was essentially a stalemate. There was a lot of entertainment 188 00:22:38.540 --> 00:22:46.540 Value, along with the catastrophe that it was, but it really didn't decide anything. 189 00:22:46.540 --> 00:22:54.540 Six, the Confederates, you're going to see, ultimately help make the Union blockade effective. 190 00:22:54.540 --> 00:23:04.700 Seven, states' rights and limited government in the South was their particular perspective 191 00:23:04.700 --> 00:23:10.060 for Ideology, and yet what we're going to find that when it came to the war, they tended 192 00:23:10.060 --> 00:23:17.700 to fight the war with a big government approach, a heavy-handed approach, where the government 193 00:23:17.700 --> 00:23:24.460 would actually set up all the various industries, control all the various industries and trade, 194 00:23:24.460 --> 00:23:31.700 and so they took a very unusual approach when you compare their ideology to how they actually 195 00:23:31.700 --> 00:23:45.700 8. North and South, people and politicians blamed inflation upon the entrepreneur, upon business, upon the market economy. 196 00:23:45.700 --> 00:23:54.700 What we're going to show is that inflation or higher prices was the result of the government printing press. 197 00:23:54.700 --> 00:24:04.700 Number nine, we're going to see so much of this that it's, just simply put, war is a bad thing. 198 00:24:04.700 --> 00:24:09.700 Again, it may have a great deal of entertainment value for modern Americans, 199 00:24:09.700 --> 00:24:19.700 but war is a very bad thing for the economy, for the population, and for the least advantaged groups in society. 200 00:24:19.700 --> 00:24:31.700 And then in number 10, in the introduction, we list five sort of quirky things that you're going to learn in the book. 201 00:24:31.700 --> 00:24:37.700 Number one, who coined the phrase, Yankee ingenuity? 202 00:24:37.700 --> 00:24:43.700 Number two, when did the New Deal begin? 203 00:24:43.700 --> 00:24:48.700 Number three, who was the Wizard of Oz? 204 00:24:48.700 --> 00:25:00.700 4. How did the South get nicknamed Dixie? 5. What did the real-life Rhett Butler give a damn about? 205 00:25:18.700 --> 00:25:28.700 goes on for so long. In other words, once you're in it, all the problems go on for a long time. 206 00:25:28.700 --> 00:25:29.700 First of all... 207 00:25:29.700 --> 00:25:31.700 You mean after the war is over? 208 00:25:31.700 --> 00:25:32.700 No, no. 209 00:25:32.700 --> 00:25:33.700 During the war? 210 00:25:33.700 --> 00:25:41.700 After the war starts, the problems come up. Not in twos and threes, but in battalions. 211 00:25:41.700 --> 00:26:09.700 The point is that they don't, a lot of times, they're pragmatic and they leave some problems aside that they should pay attention to and they take up other problems that aren't as important as the ones, and so they've got to appear to be very wise and very, you know... 212 00:26:09.700 --> 00:26:25.700 One interesting thing about Sherman in terms of military tactics is that the American Civil War is one of the great watersheds in terms of how wars are actually conducted. 213 00:26:25.700 --> 00:26:30.700 That changes in the 19th century to a large extent. 214 00:26:30.700 --> 00:27:00.700 War was typically fought one army versus one army. With Sherman, we had the advent of the all-out war on the American continent. This is something that he really helped develop himself. He was the president of Louisiana. He was the president of the United States of America. He was the president of the United States of America. 215 00:27:00.700 --> 00:27:30.700 at Louisiana State University right before the war. But in his early military career, he led the war against the Seminole Indians in Florida. And just like all the other American generals who tried before him, he could not beat the Seminole Indians. And as a matter of fact, he was losing to the Seminole Indians, and you know, those American forts would get cut off, and their supply trains would be harassed. And so Sherman, 216 00:27:30.700 --> 00:28:00.700 The Federal Reserve decided that he was going to subdue the Seminoles, and so he started killing women and children, started burning houses and crops, and basically ignoring the Seminole warriors or their army, and just simply killing women and children, destroying crops, destroying water systems and things of that nature, and this is something that he sort of carries over into the Civil War in the sense of 217 00:28:00.700 --> 00:28:06.660 fallout war, you rush your troops against all of your opponents, whether they're civilian 218 00:28:06.660 --> 00:28:13.460 or military, and you just, you know, of course, Shermans marched to the sea, where he basically 219 00:28:13.460 --> 00:28:23.660 burned, destroyed, stole a wide swath of resources from basically an undefended civilian population. 220 00:28:23.660 --> 00:28:28.260 And then that gets carried on after the war in terms of trying to exterminate and move 221 00:28:28.260 --> 00:28:33.260 to remove the American Indians off of any perceived piece of valuable land. 222 00:28:33.260 --> 00:28:40.260 So Sherman was right, war is hell, especially once he got his hands on it. 223 00:28:40.260 --> 00:28:46.260 It really became a pretty dark issue. 224 00:28:46.260 --> 00:28:58.260 In his defense of Sherman, he didn't like fighting. His casualties, all the way from Chattanooga to Savannah, were fewer than Grant plus Ludwig's. 225 00:28:58.260 --> 00:28:59.260 That's true. 226 00:28:59.260 --> 00:29:01.260 He had to maneuver. 227 00:29:01.260 --> 00:29:10.260 Yes, he was a very good maneuverer, and every time he did, the Southern Army on that particular campaign just pulled back. They kept on pulling back. 228 00:29:10.260 --> 00:29:24.260 I'm still sort of puzzled by all that, and I think that he was very adversely affected by what he was doing. 229 00:29:24.260 --> 00:29:34.260 I mean, he complained to Grant that it had driven him mad in their early days together, but he always managed to pull himself together. 230 00:29:34.260 --> 00:29:41.220 in fact both of them relied on each other to keep their their heads together so 231 00:29:41.220 --> 00:29:48.100 to speak Sherman with from what I've read or been told sort of mental 232 00:29:48.100 --> 00:29:55.500 instability and then Grant with his with his famous drinking problems was a real 233 00:29:55.500 --> 00:30:18.500 Well, the Southern, the South did not intend, they didn't have a, what do you call it, destroy everything. He destroyed, in other words, he said that the only way you're going to end the war is to cut the enemy down and destroy their resources. 234 00:30:18.500 --> 00:30:29.380 and of course the Russians did that to the Germans too in World War II, a Scorch-Gerge policy. 235 00:30:29.380 --> 00:30:39.940 But the difference between like the southern armed forces in Germany, 236 00:30:39.940 --> 00:30:47.220 he always had more soldiers coming in from the north. Well they, once they expanded their soldiers, they had 237 00:30:47.220 --> 00:31:00.220 And so he could afford to be a long way from his base because he lived off the country. 238 00:31:17.220 --> 00:31:28.220 So, you know, at that point he was, you know, dependent as other generals are in terms of their supplies and their backups and things of that nature. 239 00:31:28.220 --> 00:31:39.220 Well, one thing about the South, when they won a battle or when they brought some territory, they took whatever was there, like, for instance, the story of Gettysburg. 240 00:31:39.220 --> 00:31:52.220 These Southerners, the South came in from the North, and the North came in from the South, and they were on, I remember reading one line, the Southerners were on the Emmitsburg Pike, they were looking for shoes. 241 00:31:52.220 --> 00:32:08.220 These guys were practically, you know, walking around there. When they came across a sizable town, they just went in there and took whatever they wanted. 242 00:32:08.220 --> 00:32:15.220 Well, but that's not uncommon for armies to do that kind of thing. And what we're going to find out is the answer to the question, why didn't they have any shoes? You know, that's the sort of the curious thing for a country that has a lot of soldiers. 243 00:32:38.220 --> 00:32:41.180 uh... or for a group of states at least 244 00:32:41.180 --> 00:32:44.380 uh... 245 00:32:44.380 --> 00:32:45.920 to not have shoes 246 00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:46.980 uh... 247 00:32:46.980 --> 00:32:51.660 is quite remarkable. 248 00:32:51.660 --> 00:32:53.620 Well, in Europe as well. 249 00:32:53.620 --> 00:32:55.720 uh... 250 00:32:55.720 --> 00:32:57.620 okay uh... let me 251 00:32:57.620 --> 00:33:00.040 delve a little bit into 252 00:33:00.040 --> 00:33:03.820 chapter one before we get to the break time here 253 00:33:03.820 --> 00:33:07.100 uh... 254 00:33:07.100 --> 00:33:09.100 and this is 255 00:33:09.100 --> 00:33:12.120 chapter one where we're looking at 256 00:33:12.120 --> 00:33:14.540 the causes 257 00:33:14.540 --> 00:33:17.220 the onset of the civil war 258 00:33:17.220 --> 00:33:20.160 uh... there were a lot of questions last week about 259 00:33:20.160 --> 00:33:24.140 you know what was the economy like prior to the start of 260 00:33:24.140 --> 00:33:25.900 the war and this 261 00:33:25.900 --> 00:33:27.980 chapter really provides 262 00:33:27.980 --> 00:33:29.840 some of the detail 263 00:33:29.840 --> 00:33:31.220 not just the history 264 00:33:31.220 --> 00:33:33.680 but the history in the context 265 00:33:33.680 --> 00:33:34.900 of 266 00:33:34.900 --> 00:33:36.120 the forces 267 00:33:36.120 --> 00:33:40.180 that Causes Civil War. 268 00:33:40.180 --> 00:33:41.960 Now as I mentioned 269 00:33:41.960 --> 00:33:43.860 in last week's class 270 00:33:43.860 --> 00:33:44.800 that 271 00:33:44.800 --> 00:33:47.280 today 272 00:33:47.280 --> 00:33:51.400 slavery is considered the cause of the war. 273 00:33:51.400 --> 00:33:54.520 And I mentioned the Fogel and Engerman thesis, 274 00:33:54.520 --> 00:33:58.480 Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman's thesis 275 00:33:58.480 --> 00:34:02.780 which they wrote in their book Time on the Cross 276 00:34:02.780 --> 00:34:08.220 that sort of lifted the issue of slavery into the forefront. They argued that 277 00:34:08.220 --> 00:34:10.260 slavery was very profitable 278 00:34:10.260 --> 00:34:13.900 and there was basically no end in sight for slavery, that 279 00:34:13.900 --> 00:34:16.620 if the Civil War hadn't come 280 00:34:16.620 --> 00:34:22.180 that slavery would have persisted for an extremely long period of time. 281 00:34:22.180 --> 00:34:25.800 There's also the simple fact of the matter is that 282 00:34:25.800 --> 00:34:27.980 slavery was one of the few things 283 00:34:27.980 --> 00:34:29.960 that most Americans 284 00:34:29.960 --> 00:34:31.180 remember 285 00:34:31.180 --> 00:34:36.100 about this time period. We don't have 286 00:34:36.100 --> 00:34:37.980 relatives 287 00:34:37.980 --> 00:34:42.660 who directly knew relatives who were there at the time, or at least 288 00:34:42.660 --> 00:34:44.400 a lot of the population 289 00:34:44.400 --> 00:34:46.740 no longer has that connection. 290 00:34:46.740 --> 00:34:50.580 And so our memory of what things were like, of course, we don't have any 291 00:34:50.580 --> 00:34:52.500 direct memory of it. 292 00:34:52.500 --> 00:34:54.340 We don't have any family 293 00:34:54.340 --> 00:34:58.980 passed down, or that information isn't passed down as much, but we all 294 00:34:58.980 --> 00:35:04.820 have the idea through school and history books that slavery was definitely there before hand 295 00:35:04.820 --> 00:35:10.780 and afterwards it wasn't, okay? So it's in that sense. 296 00:35:10.780 --> 00:35:18.820 Mark, a little earlier you mentioned time on the cross, how can they present that argument 297 00:35:18.820 --> 00:35:24.780 when a dozen countries got rid of slavery before the states got involved in the Civil War 298 00:35:24.780 --> 00:35:29.480 Left a half a dozen to get rid of slavery after the war. 299 00:35:29.480 --> 00:35:33.780 All the new world got rid of slavery except the states, 300 00:35:33.780 --> 00:35:36.080 where they've killed a bunch of people. 301 00:35:36.080 --> 00:35:39.780 Yeah, it's, and they actually 302 00:35:39.780 --> 00:35:41.880 sidestep the issue, but they include, 303 00:35:41.880 --> 00:35:46.280 and as a matter of fact, that's my source for that information, is they include a list 304 00:35:46.280 --> 00:35:51.580 of places in the Western Hemisphere. 305 00:35:51.580 --> 00:36:00.580 The vast majority have got rid of slavery before the Civil War and then a few after the Civil War. 306 00:36:00.580 --> 00:36:09.580 Almost all of them were peaceful. There were a variety of different schemes over which it could have been brought about 307 00:36:09.580 --> 00:36:16.580 that were used with greater or less degrees of success. 308 00:36:16.580 --> 00:36:23.580 But I think it demonstrates that Fogle and Engerman's thesis is not all that sound. 309 00:36:23.580 --> 00:36:28.140 And then the Collier and Hoffler evidence that I presented, where they looked at all 310 00:36:28.140 --> 00:36:34.080 civil wars and they looked at what were the factors that were in common with civil wars 311 00:36:34.080 --> 00:36:42.760 and issues of race and ethnicity never seemed to be the real defining key feature. 312 00:36:42.760 --> 00:36:50.560 It was always economic interest that one group was trying to capture a very valuable resource 313 00:36:50.560 --> 00:36:57.080 or split off so that they could keep it to themselves. 314 00:36:57.080 --> 00:37:03.960 Our view of what caused the Civil War is that everything or at least many things need to 315 00:37:03.960 --> 00:37:11.920 be considered like ideology, the economy, and government. 316 00:37:11.920 --> 00:37:17.080 And another point I made last week was that before the Civil War and after the Civil War, 317 00:37:17.080 --> 00:37:24.760 all of these things changed dramatically. Ideologically, Americans changed, their economy changed and 318 00:37:24.760 --> 00:37:32.840 their government changed in a very significant way. Now the Beard thesis of history, Charles 319 00:37:32.840 --> 00:37:41.480 and Mary Beard, very famous historians, they argue that economic forces cause history. 320 00:37:41.480 --> 00:37:50.480 And so their textbook explains American history as a series of economic forces that lead to events. 321 00:37:50.480 --> 00:37:57.480 It's kind of a Marxist view of history. 322 00:37:57.480 --> 00:38:10.480 Our view is again we have multiple issues, economic forces are important, but politics and interests really are the key. 323 00:38:10.480 --> 00:38:14.320 and ideology is tied up in that as well. 324 00:38:14.320 --> 00:38:18.580 So the first thing we look at is antebellum politics. 325 00:38:18.580 --> 00:38:23.480 And what you'll see in this chapter and in the section on antebellum politics 326 00:38:23.480 --> 00:38:26.880 is there's two trends or two 327 00:38:26.880 --> 00:38:29.720 major groups 328 00:38:29.720 --> 00:38:33.960 of politicians. 329 00:38:33.960 --> 00:38:36.880 On the one hand we have the Federalists, 330 00:38:36.880 --> 00:38:40.240 like Alexander Hamilton, which is 331 00:38:40.240 --> 00:38:48.480 followed by the Whigs and Henry Clay, important leader, Henry Clay in Congress, and then finally 332 00:38:48.480 --> 00:38:57.120 we have the Republican Party emerging under the leadership of Abraham Lincoln. 333 00:38:57.120 --> 00:39:03.920 And I briefly explained that this group, the Federalists, the Whigs and the Republicans 334 00:39:03.920 --> 00:39:12.880 had some common threads, the threads of mercantilism and protectionism with regard to economic policies. 335 00:39:12.880 --> 00:39:18.000 Their desire to see an expansion of public works. 336 00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:23.880 Public works are things like building forts or building canals or the government building 337 00:39:23.880 --> 00:39:26.960 railroads or whatever it happens to be. 338 00:39:26.960 --> 00:39:31.720 Building buildings and building structures and building infrastructure when the government 339 00:39:31.720 --> 00:39:37.240 does it, is called public works. They like the idea of national banks, and these parties 340 00:39:37.240 --> 00:39:41.880 were behind the first and second national banks in the United States, and in general 341 00:39:41.880 --> 00:39:52.120 they like big government. The other side of the fence, we see the anti-federalists of 342 00:39:52.120 --> 00:40:00.120 the constitutional era, like Patrick Henry, the democratic republicans, like Thomas Jefferson, 343 00:40:00.120 --> 00:40:06.920 And then ultimately the Democrats or the Democratic Party, for example, Andrew Jackson. 344 00:40:06.920 --> 00:40:12.360 And this group was more free market, they wanted limited government where, you know, 345 00:40:12.360 --> 00:40:17.760 the government had a contract with the people that said it could do this, this and this, 346 00:40:17.760 --> 00:40:20.320 but couldn't do this, this and this. 347 00:40:20.320 --> 00:40:25.060 So it was limited in size, also limited in scope. 348 00:40:25.060 --> 00:40:32.740 They supported free trade and sound money, and the Anti-Federalists, Democratic Republicans 349 00:40:32.740 --> 00:40:38.460 and Democrats, they fought the first and second national bank of the United States. 350 00:40:38.460 --> 00:40:39.460 They fought the idea of... 351 00:40:39.460 --> 00:40:45.940 Jackson against the bank, he fought the bank for a year, I don't think he won that fight, 352 00:40:45.940 --> 00:40:46.940 did he? 353 00:40:46.940 --> 00:40:47.940 Ultimately, yes. 354 00:40:47.940 --> 00:41:00.940 The bank came down and I think basically with the second bank, its charter ran up out of time and Congress could not agree on recharging it. 355 00:41:00.940 --> 00:41:08.940 But these guys on this side, they didn't like the national banks. They didn't even like, some of them didn't even like banks, period. 356 00:41:08.940 --> 00:41:13.940 They didn't like paper money. They didn't like banks. They believed in gold and silver coins. 357 00:41:13.940 --> 00:41:33.940 These groups, these political beliefs, were not split along state borders. There were democrats in Whigs, North and South. There were strong, hardcore, anti-Federalists in the United States. 358 00:41:33.940 --> 00:41:45.380 Democrats and Whigs, North and South. There were strong, hardcore, anti-Federalist Democrats 359 00:41:45.380 --> 00:41:52.220 in New York and New Hampshire. And then there were strong advocates of Whigs, the Whig Party 360 00:41:52.220 --> 00:42:01.300 and the Republican Party in the South. John C. Calhoun is a real good case in point as 361 00:42:01.300 --> 00:42:07.620 As a young man, as a young politician, he supported the Whig view of a strong national 362 00:42:07.620 --> 00:42:12.860 government who did all this stuff, but by the end of his political career, he had completely 363 00:42:12.860 --> 00:42:19.860 switched his opinion and thought that a big national government, a strong national government 364 00:42:19.860 --> 00:42:27.860 was a threat, and so his political views changed, as is often the case with politicians. 365 00:42:27.860 --> 00:42:37.860 Did the Whigs go over to the Republican Party and proportionally more Whigs went into the Republican Party than the Democrats? 366 00:42:57.860 --> 00:43:13.860 At that point, they no longer spoke of each other in terms of political parties, and the Confederate government becomes more and more, not Republican, but more and more wiggish as time goes on. 367 00:43:13.860 --> 00:43:21.860 A lot of the Democrats would often go out and get themselves killed. 368 00:43:21.860 --> 00:43:28.860 Okay, so, it's not a north and south thing to begin with, but what we've got going on here is a western movement. 369 00:43:28.860 --> 00:43:34.860 This economy is growing, this economy is moving west, the population is increasing. 370 00:43:34.860 --> 00:43:47.860 The issue of slavery in the territories is a very big issue, and the consequence of all this is there's a big problem here. 371 00:43:47.860 --> 00:43:55.240 And initially the South really holds, is politically dominant. They control the Supreme Court, 372 00:43:55.240 --> 00:44:04.740 they had most of the presidents, you know, they had an advantage in the Senate. So they 373 00:44:04.740 --> 00:44:11.860 had political control. But then, in the antebellum period, the land issue becomes very important. 374 00:44:11.860 --> 00:44:31.860 The US has got all this land, the Louisiana Purchase, the Northwest Territory and of course the amount of land that the US controls grows significantly in the antebellum period and the whole issue is should they sell it or should they just give it away to people for free? 375 00:44:31.860 --> 00:44:58.860 You can imagine, just imagine yourself owning the Louisiana Territory, bigger than most European countries, vast natural resources of fertile, well watered agricultural land, just waiting to put a seed in it, and Congress gets to decide whether they're going to sell it or give it away for free. 376 00:44:58.860 --> 00:45:11.860 The Democrats supported selling it. They wanted that revenue there so tariffs could stay low and they wanted government to stay small. 377 00:45:11.860 --> 00:45:22.860 They wanted to sell the land where other people wanted the land to be given away for free. 378 00:45:22.860 --> 00:45:30.140 Free. And there was a free soil party, mostly in the North, that advocated giving away free 379 00:45:30.140 --> 00:45:31.140 land. 380 00:45:31.140 --> 00:45:37.460 I thought that free soil was no slavery, wasn't it? 381 00:45:37.460 --> 00:45:47.780 They were mostly abolitionists, but they were, free soil was their main deal. That was the 382 00:45:47.780 --> 00:45:48.780 main attraction. 383 00:45:48.780 --> 00:46:02.780 What, would they stake out, I mean, each guy put a stake out, or was it the railroads that had all this land that... 384 00:46:02.780 --> 00:46:06.780 No, Ozzie, a lot of that comes after the Civil War. 385 00:46:06.780 --> 00:46:14.780 You know, the intercontinental railroads and those land grants, there were some of that going on before the Civil War. 386 00:46:14.780 --> 00:46:44.780 I think the mobile to Chicago Railroad was built with federal land, but there was a free soil party there, there was running candidates and attracting a lot of votes, and a lot of immigrant votes, and immigration was increasing, and the whole idea is embodied in the Homestead Act, which was passed by the Republican Party in 1862, which said, 387 00:46:44.780 --> 00:46:52.780 You go out there, and you rope off 160 acres, and you get it for free. 388 00:46:52.780 --> 00:47:01.780 Okay, we've got immigration as an issue. Democrats were split on this issue. They basically supported free immigration. 389 00:47:01.780 --> 00:47:10.780 However, there was a lot of people who wanted immigration restricted. They thought that immigrants were driving down wages, which they were. 390 00:47:10.780 --> 00:47:34.780 And as a result of this problem in society, the Know-Nothing Party developed. This was a party sort of below the radar map, but they ran candidates, they had platforms. The idea was that if anybody asked you what your party supported, you said, I don't know nothing about it. 391 00:47:34.780 --> 00:47:46.780 And so the immigration issue was important. Slavery, of course, we also see a splitting and fracturing of Americans along political lines. 392 00:47:46.780 --> 00:47:52.780 The Democrats, North and South, said it should be decided on the matter of states' rights. 393 00:47:52.780 --> 00:48:01.780 But abolitionist groups, particularly in the North and Northeast, were very prominent and they wanted to do away with it. 394 00:48:01.780 --> 00:48:07.900 with it, and they wanted federal intervention. As a matter of fact, some of them actually 395 00:48:07.900 --> 00:48:14.900 argued for the northern states to secede from the southern states because of slavery in 396 00:48:14.940 --> 00:48:21.940 the south. Even alcohol, there was a minor group of prohibitionists. Alcohol prohibition 397 00:48:23.420 --> 00:48:30.420 was an important issue in the 1850s. Several cities and states prohibited the sale of alcohol 398 00:48:31.780 --> 00:48:38.780 Well, you know, Mark, considering the way our ancestors drank, it's no wonder there was a Prohibition Party. Because they were really terrible boosters. 399 00:49:01.780 --> 00:49:31.780 He points out that Americans, particularly in the late 18th century, early 19th century, consumed a tremendous amount of alcohol, and that they would drink alcohol products, breakfast, lunch, dinner, they would be drinking on break time, in mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and that they were basically always consuming alcohol products using alcohol and baked goods, 400 00:49:31.780 --> 00:49:48.780 and all the rest. They didn't get drunk. They never were drunk. It was more of a European thing where you just drink. They would use it as a beverage to purify water and all sorts of things. 401 00:49:48.780 --> 00:50:00.780 But as you get later into the antebellum period, there's more of this rambunctiousness and drunkardness which helps drive the prohibitionist movement. 402 00:50:00.780 --> 00:50:05.780 ultimately faltered, but there was a political movement for prohibitionists. 403 00:50:05.780 --> 00:50:16.780 Now basically what happens in the 1850s is that the Free Soil Party, the Know-Nothing Party, the abolitionists, the prohibitionists, and the Whigs 404 00:50:16.780 --> 00:50:29.780 all join together to form the Republican Party. So it's not just the Whigs, it's the Whigs and all these other splinter groups that really coalesce. 405 00:50:29.780 --> 00:50:47.780 They come together and they form what is otherwise a very fairly significant, especially in the northern states, where the Republicans gain political control in the election of 1860. 406 00:50:59.780 --> 00:51:13.780 Yes, it's Charles and Mary Beard. B-E-A-R-D. And they have at least a couple. 407 00:51:13.780 --> 00:51:20.780 What's the name of the book? Is it in your notes? 408 00:51:20.780 --> 00:51:22.780 No, it's not in my notes. 409 00:51:22.780 --> 00:51:51.780 Oh yeah, they were primarily historians, and very famous contributions, and like I said, there's an underlying Marxism built into it, even though they're saying economic forces are doing it, now they have one book that's something to the effect of economic forces in American history, 410 00:51:51.780 --> 00:51:59.700 where they detail the whole thing and the another one is the economic 411 00:51:59.700 --> 00:52:04.020 interpretation of the Constitution where they take every provision in the 412 00:52:04.020 --> 00:52:07.220 Constitution they say now why did they put that in there and why did they put 413 00:52:07.220 --> 00:52:19.180 this in there type of thing yes yes exactly early 1900s absolutely 414 00:52:19.180 --> 00:52:25.180 Absolutely, because his book was the book of American history. 415 00:52:25.180 --> 00:52:32.180 It was, you know, considered the one and only. 416 00:52:32.180 --> 00:52:40.180 Now, in some sense, that book itself has been highly criticized in many ways. 417 00:52:40.180 --> 00:52:46.180 But I'm not sure to the extent that its general point of view 418 00:52:46.180 --> 00:53:15.180 has really shrunk away from, well, it's still referenced and talked about quite a bit. It's still something that any graduate student in history, in American history, would certainly should be familiar with because discussions of American history, that's going to be included in any discussion of American history or the interpretation of the Constitution. 419 00:53:15.180 --> 00:53:21.180 I get to ask you, is Samuelson's textbook still used in economics? 420 00:53:21.180 --> 00:53:25.180 I think it's, yes it is. It's still in production. 421 00:53:25.180 --> 00:53:27.180 Is it really popular? 422 00:53:27.180 --> 00:53:31.180 No, it's not nearly as popular. It was once... 423 00:53:31.180 --> 00:53:33.180 Most of it. 424 00:53:33.180 --> 00:53:35.180 Most I was my age I think had it. 425 00:53:35.180 --> 00:53:39.180 Yeah, really it's nice stuff to read. It's a good book, you know. 426 00:53:39.180 --> 00:53:42.180 I remember him saying that there was... 427 00:53:42.180 --> 00:54:10.180 I remember, of course annually it was changed, and when we were buying what the KGB was giving us about the Russian economy back in the 50's, 60's, 56's, 57's I guess, and he would buy into that very heavily. 428 00:54:10.180 --> 00:54:38.180 I've always been attracted to this thing about economics as being the fundamental to conflict and when you look at the Civil War, 429 00:54:38.180 --> 00:55:05.180 I don't think you can question that to others, but with the New Englanders and certain people that were highly vocal there, I had no question that they had strong law convictions against slavery, but you had people in the South that had the same feelings, and it was difficult for them, I think, to print it and make it live in the newspapers, though, as they were good in the North, I guess, and the Northeast. 430 00:55:05.180 --> 00:55:30.180 But there are many examples, many people have strong feelings in the south about the morality of slavery, and I think in this book that we concluded earlier, I think we concluded from outside, I have a book, it was an avoidance that the problem could have been resolved, 431 00:55:30.180 --> 00:55:55.180 I guess maybe an analogy would be Brazil, where it's a country the same size as ours, and they have even more money to understand it, and they produce cotton and those things, and now this came after our war, and our war could perhaps have given it to some of us, but I don't think it could have been resolved. 432 00:55:55.180 --> 00:56:19.180 I think one of the rare causes, other than economic issues, were just the leadership that we had, the hotheads I call them, 433 00:56:19.180 --> 00:56:38.180 together in the south and over to the north, and none of the democracy fell just like it was just earlier in that they weren't controlled and that the level of hand or the right didn't rationalize things and avoid the war. 434 00:56:38.180 --> 00:56:44.180 I think that what we've heard is that the war has been making a lot of it. 435 00:56:44.180 --> 00:56:55.180 And we want the President to do it, recognize him, accept all the candidates and make him 60 or something. 436 00:57:08.180 --> 00:57:26.180 Why did the South secede when it did? Couldn't it have waited and looked for another round of whether or not things could have been worked out more diplomatically? 437 00:57:26.180 --> 00:57:41.380 And I think there again, there were a half a dozen people, one or two in each state, it was very vocal, and there were big columns, and there were a big mouth, and it stirred up the people. 438 00:57:41.380 --> 00:57:51.380 Did Lorenzo say that was Lincoln's fault? They could have come together. These supporters definitely wanted the damn war. 439 00:57:51.380 --> 00:57:56.380 No, no, look at this in the first inauguration speech. 440 00:57:56.380 --> 00:58:00.380 Well, I don't listen to speeches. I didn't listen to the last one. 441 00:58:00.380 --> 00:58:28.380 But South Carolina seceded way before Lincoln got inaugurated and those guys, I think they were, like Jack said, the hotheads, they practically said, well, we're going to have a war, I mean, Lincoln is going to abolish slavery and all this and that. 442 00:58:28.380 --> 00:58:48.380 And he said many times, if I could save the Union by allowing slavery to exist, I will. If I can save it the other way, I will. His idea is part of that. I believe he was very conciliatory toward the South. 443 00:58:48.380 --> 00:58:53.300 So that's right, he had already, it was a gone conclusion. 444 00:58:53.300 --> 00:58:59.580 Yeah, and that's what I'm going to basically, what I've been trying to set up here is that 445 00:58:59.580 --> 00:59:09.580 these forces were already in motion, and that the players really understood how this was 446 00:59:09.580 --> 00:59:10.580 all going to work out. 447 00:59:10.580 --> 00:59:17.660 They were much more perceptive about these issues than we are today. 448 00:59:17.660 --> 00:59:24.700 Because of the era of states' rights, limited government was a different game to be played 449 00:59:24.700 --> 00:59:25.700 entirely. 450 00:59:25.700 --> 00:59:27.700 And you're absolutely right. 451 00:59:27.700 --> 00:59:33.420 Lincoln did everything he could to keep the slavery issue off the table. 452 00:59:33.420 --> 00:59:37.340 He never spoke about it during the campaign. 453 00:59:37.340 --> 00:59:43.080 In his inauguration speech, he basically laid out that he's not going to do anything with 454 00:59:43.080 --> 00:59:51.620 regarding slavery, and in fact I think he mentions in his inaugural speech that they 455 00:59:51.620 --> 00:59:59.460 are working on a constitutional amendment basically which will explicitly reinforce slavery 456 00:59:59.460 --> 01:00:00.460 for all time. 457 01:00:00.460 --> 01:00:07.140 Now one of the things that's not in this book, but it's very much in interest of mine, and 458 01:00:07.140 --> 01:00:12.540 And I think it is important enough of an issue that I want to try to explain a little of 459 01:00:12.540 --> 01:00:25.540 this research because I think it gets to Jack's question most directly, as well as George's 460 01:00:25.540 --> 01:00:36.340 point about abolition, and that is that in the United States laws regarding slavery basically 461 01:00:36.340 --> 01:00:46.380 You made it very difficult to abolish slavery or reduce slavery or to phase slavery out 462 01:00:46.380 --> 01:00:49.180 of existence. 463 01:00:49.180 --> 01:00:59.300 Everybody of African descent was a slave and no one of non-African descent was a slave. 464 01:00:59.300 --> 01:01:09.340 Each state that had slavery had laws regarding the government catching and returning slaves, 465 01:01:09.340 --> 01:01:15.420 and the federal government had a law that would capture and return slaves from outside 466 01:01:15.420 --> 01:01:21.620 the slave states back into the slave states, which is, of course, one of the reasons why 467 01:01:21.620 --> 01:01:27.860 the Underground Railroad ended in Canada. It didn't end in New York City. It ended 468 01:01:27.860 --> 01:01:33.980 and that you had to go all the way to Canada or sometimes Vermont in order to really get 469 01:01:33.980 --> 01:01:40.800 away from slavery. The laws in the south not only mandated that the state would track your 470 01:01:40.800 --> 01:01:47.960 slaves down for you, arrest them if they were away from the plantation without a pass, but 471 01:01:47.960 --> 01:01:54.820 they also made it such that you were not allowed to free your slaves. And so only in a very 472 01:01:54.820 --> 01:02:16.820 Wasn't that because the South feared free slaves? If the idea took hold, they were afraid of what would happen? 473 01:02:24.820 --> 01:02:44.820 Why did they prevent them from teaching the slaves to read and things like that? 474 01:02:54.820 --> 01:03:18.820 Slave owners wanted to teach their slaves to read and write so that they could have black preachers and they could keep records and they could read, you know, stuff like that, but in general, slave owners don't want slaves reading and writing because if you can read and write, you can read a map. You can read a road sign. 475 01:03:18.820 --> 01:03:32.220 I think conditions differed in the deep south cotton states and the more northern parts of the south, because Robert E. Lee's father-in-law, for instance, 476 01:03:32.220 --> 01:03:43.820 made him all his slaves when he died and the only problem was just bookkeeping, you know, finding buyers or finding jobs for them and so on. 477 01:03:43.820 --> 01:03:48.860 Well that, see that's a problem because in a lot of southern states you could not 478 01:03:48.860 --> 01:03:53.900 manumit your, or free your slaves unless you sent them outside. 479 01:03:53.900 --> 01:03:56.340 Yeah, that's why you didn't want them to stay there. 480 01:03:56.340 --> 01:04:04.340 Well, and so the other states would say you're not allowed to manumit your slaves into this state. 481 01:04:04.340 --> 01:04:12.220 And so then they started manumitting, and not in massive numbers, but then they started freeing or manumitting into the northern states. 482 01:04:12.220 --> 01:04:19.380 and then the northern states said no you can't commit slaves to our territories and so there 483 01:04:19.380 --> 01:04:27.260 was a very complex web of state legislation on the part of all the southern states and 484 01:04:27.260 --> 01:04:35.340 even the northern states that made the structure of slavery static and a lot of it was in the 485 01:04:35.340 --> 01:04:41.900 the way of subsidizing slave ownership because you didn't have to have a, you know, if you 486 01:04:41.900 --> 01:04:45.980 had a hundred slaves and you didn't have the state backing you up, you'd have to hire a 487 01:04:45.980 --> 01:04:50.140 bunch of people with guns to keep an eye on them. Otherwise, I mean, you just walk, the 488 01:04:50.140 --> 01:04:54.300 slaves would just walk away. You couldn't keep your eye on that many of them. So, but 489 01:04:54.300 --> 01:05:00.020 without that, you don't need that many guys with guns. So you don't have to, you have 490 01:05:00.020 --> 01:05:07.020 You don't have to supervise your slaves, but you don't have to provide security. 491 01:05:07.020 --> 01:05:12.020 You can't read or write. You're not allowed to teach them to read or write. 492 01:05:12.020 --> 01:05:15.020 They're not allowed possessions of any weapons. 493 01:05:15.020 --> 01:05:21.020 There's just a whole series of slave code laws which kept that from breaking down. 494 01:05:21.020 --> 01:05:45.020 What about this, the price of a slave, did that go up as things heated up as far as the north and south, I mean, obviously the south couldn't have done as well growing cotton if they had, if they had a low slave population. 495 01:05:45.020 --> 01:06:00.020 The price of slaves would vary according to three main factors that we found. One was just the business cycle. 496 01:06:00.020 --> 01:06:09.020 As the business cycle was down, the price of slaves was down, if the economy was hot, the price of slaves would rise. 497 01:06:09.020 --> 01:06:18.020 Another thing was the price of cotton and tobacco, things of that nature. As those prices rose, the price of slavery also rose. 498 01:06:18.020 --> 01:06:37.020 And the third factor we found were these political factors. Every time the slave codes would be strengthened or reinforced, that would give a boost to slave prices because it was providing subsidies to slave ownership. 499 01:06:37.020 --> 01:06:50.020 And we think this legislation not only was a subsidy to slave ownership and slave owners, 500 01:06:50.020 --> 01:06:55.780 but it basically was preventing the system from breaking down. And if the system was 501 01:06:55.780 --> 01:07:04.020 allowed to break down, where white slave owners could free black slaves, and then you start 502 01:07:04.020 --> 01:07:18.020 In order to have a population of whites, black slaves, black free people and mulattoes, all of a sudden it's a lot more difficult to monitor a slave system. 503 01:07:18.020 --> 01:07:26.020 If you've got a slave system where all the white people are free and all the black people are slaves, then anybody can tell who's a slave and who's free. 504 01:07:26.020 --> 01:07:34.420 They drafted everybody in the population into these militias, into these patrols, and so 505 01:07:34.420 --> 01:07:38.980 if you saw a black person, you could naturally assume that that person was a slave, and if 506 01:07:38.980 --> 01:07:46.500 they were far away from their plantation, if they didn't have a written pass, the slaves 507 01:07:46.500 --> 01:07:50.020 could go off the plantation if they had a written pass, which is another reason why 508 01:07:50.020 --> 01:07:52.980 they weren't allowed to teach them to write. 509 01:07:52.980 --> 01:08:09.980 The thing about this is that you're not allowed to teach the slave population. If the slaves were free, they would be ignorant and they couldn't really make a living without being able to read and write. 510 01:08:09.980 --> 01:08:20.980 I think in those cases where they work for you, I'm not an expert, I'm not a student history on this issue, but they continued to do essentially the same thing that they've been doing. 511 01:08:20.980 --> 01:08:35.980 They were just compensated and life changed for them, and the culture changed, and there are costs, economic costs to slave ownership. 512 01:08:35.980 --> 01:09:04.980 Well, the big difference is security, and incentives, but the Southern Plantation System provided incentives for productivity. 513 01:09:04.980 --> 01:09:10.180 The main issue between the types of labor systems is security. 514 01:09:10.180 --> 01:09:13.180 A free labor force requires no 515 01:09:13.180 --> 01:09:15.020 massive police state 516 01:09:15.020 --> 01:09:19.380 to keep the workers on the job. They come to work because they want to get paid. 517 01:09:22.580 --> 01:09:25.620 So that's the big difference. Now in terms of 518 01:09:25.620 --> 01:09:29.980 all of that issue, we're jumping ahead of ourselves, because that's really in the last 519 01:09:29.980 --> 01:09:32.160 or second to last chapter 520 01:09:32.160 --> 01:09:37.600 of the Book about what would have happened, well the best answer for that is what actually 521 01:09:37.600 --> 01:09:52.800 did happen. But today we're prior to the war, to that cause, and I want to sort of summarize 522 01:09:52.800 --> 01:10:01.760 what the world was like, what the economy was like as we're heading into the war. Basically 523 01:10:01.760 --> 01:10:05.800 Basically the government was under the control of the Democratic Party through much of this 524 01:10:05.800 --> 01:10:15.160 period. The economy was growing as fast or faster than at any time in our history. In 525 01:10:15.160 --> 01:10:22.240 fact, most economies, this would probably be one of the fastest growing economies that's 526 01:10:22.240 --> 01:10:28.000 not being artificially stimulated in some way. By some measures, the standard of living 527 01:10:28.000 --> 01:10:33.720 Living in the United States doubled every generation, about every 50 years the standard 528 01:10:33.720 --> 01:10:40.360 of living was doubling. Tariffs were generally falling but there was a lot of turmoil in 529 01:10:40.360 --> 01:10:47.360 that area. There was a huge abundance of low cost fertile farmland and Americans were acquiring 530 01:10:49.960 --> 01:10:56.960 land ownership in huge numbers and they were actually acquiring fairly substantial plots 531 01:10:58.000 --> 01:11:06.000 Most estimates say that the farms were actually a little too big for what they really needed. 532 01:11:06.000 --> 01:11:12.000 Property rights were well-defined and well-enforced. Property rights were a big deal. 533 01:11:12.000 --> 01:11:19.000 Or how they were able to work the land until the farming group or things like that weren't invented. 534 01:11:19.000 --> 01:11:26.000 Then they could work a farm with less health. 535 01:11:26.000 --> 01:11:41.000 Well, I mean, you're talking back-breaking work in terms of clearing land. There was huge amounts of land clearing where you're doing all the work yourself with maybe horses and mules, things of that nature. 536 01:11:41.000 --> 01:11:51.000 But, you know, so you've got low-cost land, low taxes everywhere, and well-defined property rights. Everybody's carrying a gun, basically. 537 01:11:51.000 --> 01:11:57.000 Immigration is huge. People are coming in from Europe in increasing numbers because they're saying, 538 01:11:57.000 --> 01:12:08.000 hey, I can get pretty good wages, better wages, better conditions, I get myself established, get a plot of land, and we're off and running. 539 01:12:08.000 --> 01:12:15.000 Of course, slave imports have been stopped in the early antebellum period. The capital stock... 540 01:12:15.000 --> 01:12:17.000 They were still smuggling in from Cuba. 541 01:12:17.000 --> 01:12:37.000 In order for the South to ratify the Constitution, they had to let slavery continue until 1888 or something like that. 542 01:12:47.000 --> 01:12:59.000 The amount of capital stock that's being added to the economy, the tools that people are using, is increasing dramatically. 543 01:12:59.000 --> 01:13:14.000 There is an issue about labor and wages, and it's kind of a funny issue in some sense, not funny haha, 544 01:13:14.000 --> 01:13:28.000 that wages weren't actually going up all that much during this period. But the big thing here is there's so much immigration that that's suppressing wage rates. 545 01:13:28.000 --> 01:13:41.000 And some economists found they measured the employees at federal forts around the country who worked there and they found that people were getting shorter. 546 01:13:41.000 --> 01:13:53.000 And they surmised that people are getting shorter, they must not have enough food, and so they're malnutritioned, and they're suffering, they're being exploited, and so on and so forth. 547 01:13:53.000 --> 01:14:07.000 Well, what it really was, I'm sure, was that, in fact I've got a whole article on this particular nuance, is that the immigration population was smaller than the domestic population. 548 01:14:07.000 --> 01:14:15.000 And so with that great influx of labor, the average height of people were actually declining. 549 01:14:15.000 --> 01:14:20.000 Probably a stable dollar too at the time. 550 01:14:20.000 --> 01:14:29.000 Oh yeah, gold and silver coins, basically there was really no federal currency, there was no federal regulation. 551 01:14:29.000 --> 01:14:39.000 So the fact that wages were not increasing so quickly is not that big of an issue for a person. 552 01:14:59.000 --> 01:15:09.000 as golden information. Now when I say the Northwest, we're really talking about the Midwest, but at this time this was the Northwest. 553 01:15:09.000 --> 01:15:27.000 So they're growing staples out here in the West. The West is growing cattle, horses, some cotton, and then of course in the South, cotton is really the king. 554 01:15:27.000 --> 01:15:30.360 of the King, it's what's driving the Industrial Revolution. 555 01:15:30.360 --> 01:15:32.600 We don't want to take this too much out of context. 556 01:15:32.600 --> 01:15:37.280 The Industrial Revolution, as it's generally defined, 557 01:15:37.280 --> 01:15:41.800 as happening in England, Scotland, France, Germany, 558 01:15:41.800 --> 01:15:45.320 so on and so forth, is textiles. 559 01:15:45.320 --> 01:15:51.560 And the cotton from the South is the fuel for that thing. 560 01:15:51.560 --> 01:16:11.360 In the north, they're doing lots of things, manufacturing and services, banks, all that 561 01:16:11.360 --> 01:16:19.180 kind of stuff, transport, and now the flow of all this is that of course the northwest 562 01:16:19.180 --> 01:16:30.940 is sending grain to the northeast as well as some to the south. Cattle is moving east, 563 01:16:30.940 --> 01:16:41.600 or the resources of the west are moving east. Cotton is going to northern textile industries 564 01:16:41.600 --> 01:16:47.440 and the bulk of which is going to Europe. 565 01:16:47.440 --> 01:16:49.400 Northwestern grain 566 01:16:49.400 --> 01:16:51.760 is also going to Europe 567 01:16:51.760 --> 01:16:53.600 through 568 01:16:53.600 --> 01:16:55.760 the Great Lakes 569 01:16:55.760 --> 01:16:59.240 transportation system and the railroad transportation system which has now been 570 01:16:59.240 --> 01:17:01.320 completed out there. 571 01:17:01.320 --> 01:17:03.480 And the canal system too, that's right, yeah. 572 01:17:03.480 --> 01:17:06.160 We often forget the canals but that was a 573 01:17:06.160 --> 01:17:07.840 big part 574 01:17:07.840 --> 01:17:10.000 of things, especially 575 01:17:10.000 --> 01:17:19.400 20s, 30s, and 40s. And then from the northeast, the manufacturing and services are heading 576 01:17:19.400 --> 01:17:35.420 south, west, and northwest. But Europe is also sending manufactured goods to the United 577 01:17:35.420 --> 01:18:02.420 States. And that's where the terror squabble comes in. That's it, I see, that is it. Mark, just being the case, how in the world wasn't it a foolish thing for the Confederacy to embargo the export of cotton during the conflict early on, especially when there were other forces of cotton from both Europe and the United States? 578 01:18:02.420 --> 01:18:27.420 The South was the dominant player in the cotton growing business. Today, of course, we're losing market share to the rest of the world. But at this time, we were definitely the dominant player in this industry. 579 01:18:27.420 --> 01:18:37.920 And you're right. I mean, it was rather silly, I think, especially the way they proceeded to do it, to embargo the sale of cotton. 580 01:18:37.920 --> 01:18:50.420 And that's ultimately what we're getting here, is this is a picture, a very messy picture of how different regions of the economy were specializing, 581 01:18:50.420 --> 01:18:57.140 where the Northwest was producing staples, the West was producing other types of staples 582 01:18:57.140 --> 01:19:04.400 for domestic consumption. This was domestic and foreign. The South was producing a staple 583 01:19:04.400 --> 01:19:10.700 for both domestic and foreign. And the Northeast was producing manufacturing services for the 584 01:19:10.700 --> 01:19:17.700 and the other three regions, as well as reselling European goods. 585 01:19:17.700 --> 01:19:30.700 Okay, so you have specialization going on, and then Europe, in exchange for its manufactured goods, was getting grain from the Northwest and cotton and tobacco from the South. 586 01:19:30.700 --> 01:20:00.420 Yeah, that was the triangle of trade, and that had a lot to do with specialization, 587 01:20:00.420 --> 01:20:14.420 The Division of Labor and Trade as well, but this is later on, that was the colonial trade more or less, and then of course the stopping of slavery brought that triangle of a trade to stop. 588 01:20:14.420 --> 01:20:29.420 Now this is a more intricate, more advanced, more complex level of specialization in trade, and of course they're growing food in the South, it's not complete specialization in trade. 589 01:20:29.420 --> 01:20:38.600 But to the extent that they were specializing, dividing labor and trading, what we have going 590 01:20:38.600 --> 01:20:44.180 on here is a little sort of inside picture of the American view of what the Industrial 591 01:20:44.180 --> 01:20:46.860 Revolution was going on. 592 01:20:46.860 --> 01:20:51.100 We were providing the raw material for the textile workers. 593 01:20:51.100 --> 01:20:58.200 We were providing food for the textile workers and in return we were getting clothing from 594 01:20:58.200 --> 01:21:22.200 and those same textile workers from Europe. So it's sort of our half of the picture but it's an important half and ultimately, of course, what we're going to see is that the war is going to bring an isolation to the south and a separation of the south from that whole system. 595 01:21:22.200 --> 01:21:26.200 The new product of which still exists. 596 01:21:26.200 --> 01:21:32.200 Well, there's certainly a lot of fallout and aftermath to all that, but that's where we'll pick it up next Tuesday.