WEBVTT NOTE Lincoln as Progenitor 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.800 Jeffrey Hummel, an economic historian, remarked that in 1861, 2 00:00:04.800 --> 00:00:09.600 the only contact the average citizen ever had with the federal government was the post office. 3 00:00:09.600 --> 00:00:11.600 And think about that. 4 00:00:11.600 --> 00:00:14.500 But that drastically and radically changed. 5 00:00:14.500 --> 00:00:19.000 Essentially, the South's defeat in his war for independence was an overthrowing of the government 6 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:23.500 that was founded by Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and the other founders. 7 00:00:23.500 --> 00:00:29.500 And that's why I'm going to make the case that Lincoln was the progenitor of the 20th century welfare-warfare state. 8 00:00:31.500 --> 00:00:43.500 First of all, though, anybody in this country who ever criticizes Lincoln, anything he's ever done, however mildly, is inevitably accused by someone of secretly being in favor of slavery. 9 00:00:43.500 --> 00:00:58.500 So, for the record, I'm against slavery, as I'm against all forms of government-enforced racial categorization, including affirmative action, racial hiring quotas, forced segregation and forced integration against all of it. 10 00:00:58.500 --> 00:01:03.500 And so, for the record, now I can proceed with the talk. 11 00:01:03.500 --> 00:01:11.500 What I want to do in making my case is first talk a little bit about what Lincoln did not stand for and then talk about what he did stand for. 12 00:01:11.500 --> 00:01:17.500 What he did not stand for was freedom and constitutional government, not even freedom for the slaves. 13 00:01:17.500 --> 00:01:22.500 And if you look at his own words, Lincoln was obviously was a white supremacist. 14 00:01:22.500 --> 00:01:26.500 And I'll show you from the horse's mouth here. 15 00:01:26.500 --> 00:01:32.500 In one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln said, 16 00:01:32.500 --> 00:01:37.500 I will say then that I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way 17 00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:42.180 in a way, the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not 18 00:01:42.180 --> 00:01:46.860 nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes nor of qualifying them 19 00:01:46.860 --> 00:01:51.620 to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. And I will say in addition to this 20 00:01:51.620 --> 00:01:55.220 that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe 21 00:01:55.220 --> 00:01:59.740 will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political 22 00:01:59.740 --> 00:02:04.660 equality. And then as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there 23 00:02:04.660 --> 00:02:09.660 There must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any man, am in 24 00:02:09.660 --> 00:02:12.980 favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. 25 00:02:12.980 --> 00:02:16.760 That's Abraham Lincoln in one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. 26 00:02:16.760 --> 00:02:21.860 When he was asked what would happen if the slaves were freed, he said, quote, send them 27 00:02:21.860 --> 00:02:26.540 to Liberia, to their own native land, but free them and make them politically and socially 28 00:02:26.540 --> 00:02:27.600 our equals? 29 00:02:27.600 --> 00:02:30.220 My own feelings will not admit this. 30 00:02:30.220 --> 00:02:35.660 He did send about 500 freed slaves to Liberia but without any sustenance and so they all 31 00:02:35.660 --> 00:02:42.660 starved to death, apparently. Lincoln adopted the position politically on slavery of his 32 00:02:42.660 --> 00:02:48.460 mentor Henry Clay. He worshipped Henry Clay. He even dumped his fiance as a young man to 33 00:02:48.460 --> 00:02:53.220 pursue Mary Todd whose family had close links with the Clays of Kentucky. That's how much 34 00:02:53.220 --> 00:02:57.500 he worshipped Henry Clay as his idol. Clay, of course, was the leader of the Whig party 35 00:02:57.500 --> 00:03:04.180 in the Early 19th Century. And Lincoln's position and Clay's position was to opposition 36 00:03:04.180 --> 00:03:09.420 to slavery in principle, toleration of it in practice, and a vigorous hostility toward 37 00:03:09.420 --> 00:03:15.900 the abolition movement. The very word abolitionist, Lincoln once said, was quote, an odious epithet 38 00:03:15.900 --> 00:03:21.100 to him. One of his admirers, there's a book of essays on Lincoln by his admirers that 39 00:03:21.100 --> 00:03:26.180 was published in the late 19th Century, and one of his friends, a General Don Pyatt, said 40 00:03:26.180 --> 00:03:32.220 of him. He said, Lincoln expressed no sympathy for the slave and laughed at the abolitionists. 41 00:03:32.220 --> 00:03:36.580 Descended from poor whites of a slave state through many generations, he inherited the 42 00:03:36.580 --> 00:03:43.740 contempt held by that class for the negro. In fact, in Lincoln's first inaugural, those 43 00:03:43.740 --> 00:03:48.900 of you who are history students, students of history, you know that he stated unequivocally 44 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:54.200 that he had no purpose and no intent to disturb slavery. In his own words, I have no purpose 45 00:03:54.200 --> 00:03:58.200 to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. 46 00:03:58.200 --> 00:04:02.200 I believe I have no lawful right to do so and I have no inclination to do so. 47 00:04:02.200 --> 00:04:10.200 He also required each member of his cabinet to sign an oath saying that they would support strengthening the Fugitive Slave Clause. 48 00:04:10.200 --> 00:04:15.200 And of course, had they not strengthened it, had they not enforced the Fugitive Slave Clause, 49 00:04:15.200 --> 00:04:21.200 slavery would have fallen apart quicker than it did. 50 00:04:21.200 --> 00:04:30.200 Lincoln's actions are consistent with his words with regard to slavery. He never had any intention of freeing slaves in the South. 51 00:04:30.200 --> 00:04:41.200 Early in the war, General John Fremont was the military governor of Missouri when the Federal Army took over and occupied Missouri. 52 00:04:41.200 --> 00:04:49.200 He divided the state into northern and southern sections and he issued an order that said that anyone in the southern section 53 00:04:49.200 --> 00:04:54.960 and where the confederate sympathizers were who was supporting the confederate cause would 54 00:04:54.960 --> 00:05:00.580 have their slaves emancipated. That didn't go in the north. There were slaves in northern 55 00:05:00.580 --> 00:05:06.000 Missouri but under no circumstances did he threaten to emancipate those slaves. And so 56 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:10.340 he issued this order saying if we catch anybody supporting the southern cause in southern 57 00:05:10.340 --> 00:05:16.920 Missouri we will free your slaves. Lincoln did not permit this. Lincoln not only rebuffed 58 00:05:16.920 --> 00:05:23.920 General Fremont, who sent his wife, as his personal envoy, to Washington to urge Lincoln to go along with this. 59 00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:28.920 Lincoln not only did that, but he stripped Fremont of his command. He fired him. 60 00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:33.920 The last thing Lincoln wanted was to free any slaves in Missouri because he wanted West Virginia and Kentucky 61 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:36.920 and the other border states to remain in the Union. 62 00:05:36.920 --> 00:05:42.920 And interestingly, General Fremont was given what they thought was a do-nothing command. 63 00:05:42.920 --> 00:05:53.920 And they sent him in his command to the Shenandoah Valley to keep an eye on some crazy physics professor from VMI, who of course was Stonewall Jackson in the Fremont Army. 64 00:05:53.920 --> 00:06:02.920 It was one of the many armies that Stonewall Jackson obliterated in the Shenandoah Valley. 65 00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:08.920 Fremont's order would have freed some slaves. It would have freed some slaves, although Lincoln rescinded it. 66 00:06:08.920 --> 00:06:38.920 Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation however freed no slaves. It only applied to rebel territory and in my paper, by the way I have copies of my paper out at the front registration desk if anyone wants one later, I list specifically, I quote from the Emancipation Proclamation, the Federal Army occupied large parts of Louisiana. The proclamation specifically exempted all the parishes of Louisiana that the Union Army controlled and it could have therefore emancipated 67 00:06:38.920 --> 00:06:45.920 There are several kinds of slaves in those places. There's a big one, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension Parish, Assumption Parish. 68 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:52.920 These are all exempt, as was West Virginia and large parts of Virginia that were also occupied by the Federal Army at that time. 69 00:06:52.920 --> 00:06:55.920 And so it didn't free anybody. 70 00:06:55.920 --> 00:07:00.920 The London Spectator magazine ridiculed Lincoln's action by pointing out that, quote, 71 00:07:00.920 --> 00:07:09.920 Quote, the principle here is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States government. 72 00:07:09.920 --> 00:07:20.920 Which I think is absolutely true about it. Now, to consider the context in which the Emancipation Proclamation occurred, 73 00:07:20.920 --> 00:07:28.920 a quick history of some of the major battles of the war up to late 1962. 74 00:07:28.920 --> 00:07:35.920 And just to give you some context, the first major battle, the Battle of 1st Manassas was a smashing Confederate victory. 75 00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:45.920 Lincoln rode out in his carriage that afternoon expecting to revel in the glory, but instead he received a telegram from the War Department that said, 76 00:07:45.920 --> 00:07:55.920 and I'll quote it, General McDowell is retreating through Centerville, all is lost, try to save Washington and the remnants of this army. 77 00:07:55.920 --> 00:08:07.920 And that was quite a shocker. At the end of this battle, there was a wild melee of thousands of Union Army troops and civilians rushing back to Washington while the Confederates fired potshots with cannons at them. 78 00:08:07.920 --> 00:08:16.920 When Jefferson Davis arrived on the battlefield late in the day, Stonewall Jackson went up to him and said, give me 10,000 men and I will take Washington tomorrow. 79 00:08:16.920 --> 00:08:46.920 and for the rest of their lives Jefferson Davis, General Beauregard and General Joseph Johnston blamed each other for decades for not following up on that day and ending it all once and for all right there and so that was the first battle, Battle of Shiloh, the historians call it a union victory but the Federal suffered 22% more casualties still they didn't make any progress in subduing the rebels, Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign 80 00:08:46.920 --> 00:09:00.720 Stonewall Jackson had about 17,000 men, 16,000 men against 175,000 federal troops and won 81 00:09:00.720 --> 00:09:06.440 a number of smashing victories that completely eliminated the Federal Army from the Shenandoah 82 00:09:06.440 --> 00:09:07.440 Valley. 83 00:09:07.440 --> 00:09:13.840 The historian G.R. Henderson said, quote, only Napoleon's campaign of 1814 affords a 84 00:09:13.840 --> 00:09:22.840 is a parallel to this extraordinary spectacle, where he absolutely paralyzed 175,000 Federal troops, he was outnumbered 11 to 1. 85 00:09:22.840 --> 00:09:29.840 Battle of Seven Pines, another stalemate, seven days battle in June of 1862. 86 00:09:29.840 --> 00:09:34.840 Once again the Federal Army like in Manassas was sent packing back to Washington. 87 00:09:34.840 --> 00:09:39.840 The battle of Second Manassas in August of 1862, another Confederate route to the Federal Army, 88 00:09:39.840 --> 00:09:44.840 The Federal Army, just like the First Manassas Battle, where they all went fleeing back to Washington. 89 00:09:44.840 --> 00:09:47.840 The Battle of Sharpsburg ran teetum. 90 00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:53.840 No one had a clear victory, but the Federal Army suffered twice the casualties of the Confederates. 91 00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:58.840 And the Battle of Fredericksburg came next in December of 1862, 92 00:09:58.840 --> 00:10:03.840 where 85,000 Federal troops made 13 charges against the Confederate position, 93 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:07.840 and no one made it within 100 yards of their position. 94 00:10:07.840 --> 00:10:10.760 General James Longstreet told Robert E. Lee, 95 00:10:10.760 --> 00:10:13.560 if you give me enough ammunition, I will kill every one of them. 96 00:10:13.560 --> 00:10:15.880 Lee gave him the ammunition, and he did, pretty much. 97 00:10:15.880 --> 00:10:20.360 It was a horrible thing to think of, a horrible sight, 98 00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:22.120 if you ever visited that battlefield. 99 00:10:22.120 --> 00:10:26.400 This is the context in which Lincoln issued the Emancipation 100 00:10:26.400 --> 00:10:27.040 Proclamation. 101 00:10:27.040 --> 00:10:29.120 The Confederates were winning the war. 102 00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:31.720 Many of them were positioned with their cannons 103 00:10:31.720 --> 00:10:33.680 just across the Potomac from Washington 104 00:10:33.680 --> 00:10:36.880 in sight of the White House. 105 00:10:36.880 --> 00:10:44.520 And so what Lincoln said about it is this, at this time, he says in his words, 106 00:10:44.520 --> 00:10:49.420 Things have gone from bad to worse, until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope 107 00:10:49.420 --> 00:10:54.480 on the military plan of operation, that we had been pursuing, 108 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:59.720 that we had about played out our last card and must change our tactics or lose the game. 109 00:10:59.720 --> 00:11:03.840 I now determine upon the adoption of the emancipation policy. 110 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:10.720 So it was a public relations effort to get England, primarily, behind the federal cause, 111 00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:17.120 but most British opinion makers considered it to be a ruse and a fraud because it didn't 112 00:11:17.120 --> 00:11:18.120 free anybody. 113 00:11:18.120 --> 00:11:21.280 They understood they didn't free anybody. 114 00:11:21.280 --> 00:11:23.000 Most northerners were shocked at this. 115 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:29.280 There were draft riots in New York City where the federal army killed 500 civilians. 116 00:11:29.280 --> 00:11:34.380 There was a desertion crisis in the Union Army because they weren't aware that slavery 117 00:11:34.380 --> 00:11:37.580 or emancipation was the cause they were fighting for. 118 00:11:37.580 --> 00:11:43.120 The eminent historian James McPherson of Princeton says this, quote, plenty of soldiers believed 119 00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:45.820 that the proclamation had changed the purpose of the war. 120 00:11:45.820 --> 00:11:47.200 They professed to feel betrayed. 121 00:11:47.200 --> 00:11:51.840 They were willing to risk their lives for the Union, they said, but not for black freedom. 122 00:11:51.840 --> 00:11:53.400 Desertion rates rose alarmingly. 123 00:11:53.400 --> 00:11:55.600 Many soldiers blamed the Emancipation Proclamation. 124 00:11:55.600 --> 00:12:25.600 The truth is, race relations were rotten in the North, and I grew up in Pennsylvania and I was taught, like just about everybody was taught, that racially enlightened northerners marched south and died in violent deaths by the hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands, for the benefit of black strangers in Alabama, Mississippi, and then they happily marched back home singing the battle hymn of the republic. That in a nutshell is what I was taught in school, the purpose of it. But consider these 125 00:12:25.600 --> 00:12:32.600 Let's face things, facts about the North. The revised code of Indiana in 1861 stated this, 126 00:12:32.600 --> 00:12:38.600 Negroes and mulattoes are not allowed to come into the state. All contracts with Negroes and mulattoes are void. 127 00:12:38.600 --> 00:12:46.600 Any person encouraging them to come and giving them employment is fined up to $500. Negroes and mulattoes are not allowed to vote. 128 00:12:46.600 --> 00:12:54.600 Connecticut passed a law declaring that blacks could not attend public schools. New Jersey legally forbade free blacks from settling in the state. 129 00:12:54.600 --> 00:12:58.800 Massachusetts passed a law permitting the flogging of blacks who came into the state 130 00:12:58.800 --> 00:13:04.000 and remained there for more than two months. In 1853, Illinois, Lincoln's state enacted 131 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:09.240 a law, quote, to prevent the immigration of the free Negroes into this state. Then in 132 00:13:09.240 --> 00:13:15.080 1862, Illinois amended its constitution to read that, quote, no Negro or mulatto shall 133 00:13:15.080 --> 00:13:19.800 immigrate or settle in this state. Hard to believe that these people were fighting to 134 00:13:19.800 --> 00:13:21.400 to Free the Slaves. 135 00:13:21.400 --> 00:13:24.000 Senator John Sherman, who authored the Sherman Antitrust 136 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:28.280 Act 30 years later in 1862, said this, from Ohio, 137 00:13:28.280 --> 00:13:30.840 the brother of General William Tecumseh Sherman, 138 00:13:30.840 --> 00:13:32.280 we do not like the Negroes. 139 00:13:32.280 --> 00:13:34.040 We do not disguise our dislike. 140 00:13:34.040 --> 00:13:36.880 As my friend from Indiana, Congressman Wright, 141 00:13:36.880 --> 00:13:39.520 said yesterday, the whole people of the Northwestern states 142 00:13:39.520 --> 00:13:42.160 are opposed to having many Negroes among them, 143 00:13:42.160 --> 00:13:43.660 and that the principle of prejudice 144 00:13:43.660 --> 00:13:46.040 has been engraved in the legislation for nearly all 145 00:13:46.040 --> 00:13:48.160 the Northwestern states. 146 00:13:48.160 --> 00:13:53.480 Whenever Lincoln did criticize slavery, it was not in the South, it was in the New Territories. 147 00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:58.360 In my view, the reason why he only criticized slavery in the New Territories was that at 148 00:13:58.360 --> 00:14:03.740 the time, the North dominated Congress because the population was lopsided. 149 00:14:03.740 --> 00:14:09.820 If slavery was extended to the New Territories, the Three-Fifths Clause of the Constitution 150 00:14:09.820 --> 00:14:14.100 would have increased congressional representation of the southern states and that would have 151 00:14:14.100 --> 00:14:17.840 interfered with Lincoln's political agenda and the political agenda of the Whigs or the 152 00:14:17.840 --> 00:14:23.240 of the Republicans, and I think, in my view, that is the main reason that he only criticized 153 00:14:23.240 --> 00:14:28.160 slavery in those states. Lincoln showed little concern over the plight of the freedmen near 154 00:14:28.160 --> 00:14:36.440 the end of the war. When asked by Alexander Stevens what would come of them, he mentioned 155 00:14:36.440 --> 00:14:40.880 the words of a popular minstrel song, Root Hog or Die, and then in a memo to the War 156 00:14:40.880 --> 00:14:44.480 Department, he said, quote, they had better be set to digging their subsistence out of 157 00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:55.480 The Homestead Act gave away about 80% of the land that it gave away went to mining companies and railroads and none of it went to the freed blacks. 158 00:14:55.480 --> 00:15:02.480 What Lincoln did stand for, I'm arguing Lincoln didn't stand for freedom, not even freedom for the blacks. 159 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:06.480 What did he stand for? Historian Robert Johansson has written that quote, 160 00:15:06.480 --> 00:15:10.400 and that quote, from the moment Lincoln first entered political life as a candidate for 161 00:15:10.400 --> 00:15:16.320 the state legislature during the 1832 presidential election, he had demonstrated an unswerving 162 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:21.600 fidelity to the party of Henry Clay and to Henry Clay's American system, so called, 163 00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:27.400 the program of internal improvements, that is corporate welfare, internal improvements, 164 00:15:27.400 --> 00:15:32.920 protective tariff and centralized banking. That's what Lincoln stood for, mercantilism, 165 00:15:32.920 --> 00:15:38.920 interventionism, central banking, fiat money, and military adventurism in the quest for empire. 166 00:15:38.920 --> 00:15:43.920 That's what the Whig Party stood for and Lincoln absolutely idolized Henry Clay and the Whig Party. 167 00:15:43.920 --> 00:15:47.920 In his debates with Stephen Douglas, Johansson says, 168 00:15:47.920 --> 00:15:52.920 the two men reflected divergent points of view in the political culture of 19th century America. 169 00:15:52.920 --> 00:15:57.920 Lincoln, the latitudinarian concepts of national centralization and authority, 170 00:15:57.920 --> 00:16:01.920 Douglas, the strict constructionist emphasis on local self-government and states' rights. 171 00:16:01.920 --> 00:16:04.920 That's what the war was about, in my view. 172 00:16:04.920 --> 00:16:10.920 Lincoln idolized Henry Clay. He called him the bow-ideal of a statesman at his funeral. 173 00:16:10.920 --> 00:16:14.920 And the author of The Great Parent of Whig Principles, Lincoln said, 174 00:16:14.920 --> 00:16:21.920 During my whole political life, I have loved and revered Clay as a teacher and a leader. 175 00:16:21.920 --> 00:16:24.920 But what was Henry Clay's system? 176 00:16:24.920 --> 00:16:29.920 What exactly was it that Lincoln revered so much? 177 00:16:35.320 --> 00:16:36.720 I just repeated these. 178 00:16:36.720 --> 00:16:40.520 The quest for an American empire, possibly including Canada and Mexico 179 00:16:40.520 --> 00:16:42.320 and stretching all the way to China. 180 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:45.120 You can find this in any book about Henry Clay. 181 00:16:45.120 --> 00:16:47.720 Massive, federally funded corporate welfare, 182 00:16:47.720 --> 00:16:50.320 high tariffs and protectionist trade policy, 183 00:16:50.320 --> 00:16:52.520 and central banking and fiat money. 184 00:16:52.520 --> 00:16:54.520 That's what he believed in. 185 00:16:54.520 --> 00:16:57.600 And oh, by the way, on the slavery issue, 186 00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:00.240 there are two other handouts here I wanted to show you. 187 00:17:01.960 --> 00:17:04.620 From 1800 to 1861, there were a number of countries 188 00:17:04.620 --> 00:17:06.920 that ended slavery peacefully. 189 00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:10.960 What they usually did was to just pass a law saying 190 00:17:10.960 --> 00:17:13.320 that the sons and daughters of existing slaves 191 00:17:13.320 --> 00:17:16.040 would be free when they reached age 18. 192 00:17:16.040 --> 00:17:19.440 That was a way of indirectly buying off the slave owners. 193 00:17:19.440 --> 00:17:21.560 And it was in all these countries, Argentina, Chile, 194 00:17:21.560 --> 00:17:24.040 Honduras, Bolivia, French colonies, 195 00:17:24.040 --> 00:17:27.280 that provided a model for how to end slavery. 196 00:17:27.280 --> 00:17:28.620 These were all the countries in the world. 197 00:17:28.620 --> 00:17:29.880 And I took this from the book 198 00:17:29.880 --> 00:17:34.880 by Nobel laureate Robert Fogel called Time on the Cross. 199 00:17:35.200 --> 00:17:37.620 Also in his book, he has a list of countries 200 00:17:37.620 --> 00:17:42.620 that resorted to war from 1800 to 1861 to end slavery. 201 00:17:42.920 --> 00:17:45.880 And here's this list right there. 202 00:17:46.880 --> 00:17:51.300 So at the time, to the extent that slavery was ended 203 00:17:51.300 --> 00:17:52.980 in many countries around the world, 204 00:17:52.980 --> 00:17:55.780 and there was a clear model for how to do it. 205 00:17:55.780 --> 00:17:58.340 The model wasn't violent war that kills off 206 00:17:58.340 --> 00:17:59.660 one sixth of the population, 207 00:17:59.660 --> 00:18:03.340 of one sixth of the white males in the South. 208 00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:06.820 Henry Clay entered politics in 1811. 209 00:18:06.820 --> 00:18:11.580 First thing he did was to urge Congress to invade Canada. 210 00:18:12.420 --> 00:18:13.840 He was one of the first politicians 211 00:18:13.840 --> 00:18:16.940 to pervert the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. 212 00:18:16.940 --> 00:18:20.380 He was the fiercest proponent of protectionism 213 00:18:20.380 --> 00:18:23.580 from the War of 1812 until his death in 1852. 214 00:18:23.580 --> 00:18:27.500 He was the author of the Tariff of Abominations in 1828, 215 00:18:27.500 --> 00:18:29.500 which almost led to a secession crisis 216 00:18:29.500 --> 00:18:33.980 when the South Carolina legislature nullified the tariff. 217 00:18:33.980 --> 00:18:36.020 And after Clay lost this battle 218 00:18:36.020 --> 00:18:37.700 and they did nullify the tariff, 219 00:18:37.700 --> 00:18:41.260 he threw a fit in the House of Representatives 220 00:18:41.260 --> 00:18:42.900 and he promised that he would, quote, 221 00:18:42.900 --> 00:18:45.460 someday defy the South, the President, 222 00:18:45.460 --> 00:18:48.340 and the devil himself to get his way. 223 00:18:48.340 --> 00:18:51.980 He was so excited about the tariff. 224 00:18:51.980 --> 00:18:54.180 He was a long time promoter of central banking 225 00:18:54.180 --> 00:18:57.660 when he left Congress between being a member of Congress 226 00:18:57.660 --> 00:19:01.900 and took a few years off to work as a legal counsel 227 00:19:01.900 --> 00:19:04.420 of the Bank of the United States. 228 00:19:04.420 --> 00:19:07.200 He had accumulated $40,000 in personal debt. 229 00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:10.060 This is in the 1820s and he made it all up 230 00:19:10.060 --> 00:19:13.220 by working for the central bank as a legal counsel. 231 00:19:14.780 --> 00:19:18.100 Henry Clay also was in favor of a policy of genocide 232 00:19:18.100 --> 00:19:19.860 Toward the Indians. 233 00:19:19.860 --> 00:19:22.060 As Secretary of State at a cabinet meeting, 234 00:19:22.060 --> 00:19:24.780 he announced, quote, there never was a full-blooded Indian 235 00:19:24.780 --> 00:19:26.340 who took the civilization. 236 00:19:26.340 --> 00:19:27.940 It's not in their nature. 237 00:19:27.940 --> 00:19:30.980 I do not think of them as a race worth preserving. 238 00:19:30.980 --> 00:19:32.980 They're inferior to Anglo-Saxons, 239 00:19:32.980 --> 00:19:34.980 and their breed cannot be improved. 240 00:19:34.980 --> 00:19:37.860 Their disappearance from the human family 241 00:19:37.860 --> 00:19:39.980 will be no great loss to the world. 242 00:19:39.980 --> 00:19:41.900 This is the American Secretary of State 243 00:19:41.900 --> 00:19:44.020 saying this about a whole race of people. 244 00:19:44.020 --> 00:19:46.340 And of course, in 1838, the federal government 245 00:19:46.340 --> 00:19:50.900 He came to North Georgia and forced the Cherokees to walk all the way to Oklahoma. 246 00:19:50.900 --> 00:19:56.500 100,000 of them left and about three-fourths of them made it. 247 00:19:56.500 --> 00:19:58.500 This was so that was the quest for empire. 248 00:19:58.500 --> 00:20:04.180 He was compulsive about the quest for empire financed by high tariffs in a central bank. 249 00:20:04.180 --> 00:20:06.120 This is the man Lincoln idolized. 250 00:20:06.120 --> 00:20:11.660 In office, Lincoln bent over backwards to promise he would not disturb slavery, but he 251 00:20:11.660 --> 00:20:15.300 was not compromising one inch on the tariff. 252 00:20:15.300 --> 00:20:20.320 He would compromise on slavery everywhere, but he would compromise on a tariff nowhere. 253 00:20:20.320 --> 00:20:22.620 In his first inaugural address, he said, 254 00:20:22.620 --> 00:20:27.620 The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places 255 00:20:27.620 --> 00:20:33.000 belonging to the government, and, and I have this part underlined, to collect the duties 256 00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:40.060 and imposes, but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion. 257 00:20:40.060 --> 00:20:45.020 So he promised that I will invade if you don't collect the tariffs. At this time, of course, 258 00:20:45.020 --> 00:20:48.200 The tariff was the primary source of federal revenue. 259 00:20:48.200 --> 00:20:50.060 Southerners knew what was coming. 260 00:20:50.060 --> 00:20:52.660 When Lincoln was elected, before he was inaugurated, 261 00:20:52.660 --> 00:20:55.180 the House introduced the Moral Tariff Bill, 262 00:20:55.180 --> 00:20:56.560 and then after he was inaugurated, 263 00:20:56.560 --> 00:20:58.500 the Senate went along with it. 264 00:20:58.500 --> 00:21:01.860 It doubled the tariff rates of 1857 to 47%, 265 00:21:01.860 --> 00:21:06.420 which is higher than the tariff of abominations of 1828. 266 00:21:06.420 --> 00:21:09.620 And tariffs, by the way, were made unconstitutional 267 00:21:09.620 --> 00:21:12.020 in the Confederate Constitution. 268 00:21:12.020 --> 00:21:14.620 The Confederate Constitution was identical 269 00:21:14.620 --> 00:21:23.220 to the U.S. Constitution except tariffs were unconstitutional, corporate welfare was unconstitutional, 270 00:21:23.220 --> 00:21:28.220 congressional appropriations required a two-thirds vote, president had a line item veto, states 271 00:21:28.220 --> 00:21:32.340 could initiate constitutional amendments but Congress could not, central government officials 272 00:21:32.340 --> 00:21:36.660 could be impeached by the state legislatures and there was no general welfare clause in 273 00:21:36.660 --> 00:21:38.140 the Confederate Constitution. 274 00:21:38.140 --> 00:21:41.020 Other than that it was identical to the U.S. Constitution. 275 00:21:41.020 --> 00:21:43.940 Northern newspapers knew that the tariff was the heart of the issue here. 276 00:21:43.940 --> 00:21:49.940 The tariff was the heart of the Republican platform, and it was how they wanted to finance their centralized super state. 277 00:21:49.940 --> 00:21:56.940 Let me give you an example. The Chicago Times, and newspapers in these days were affiliated with political parties, said, 278 00:21:56.940 --> 00:22:03.940 On December 10th, 1860, the South has furnished nearly three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. 279 00:22:03.940 --> 00:22:09.940 Last year, she furnished 72% of the whole. We have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from 30 to 50% 280 00:22:09.940 --> 00:22:15.060 and enables us to consume large quantities of southern cotton and to compete in our whole 281 00:22:15.060 --> 00:22:20.260 home market with the skilled labor of Europe. This operates to compel the South to pay an 282 00:22:20.260 --> 00:22:25.940 indirect bounty to our skilled labor of millions of dollars annually. Let the South adopt the 283 00:22:25.940 --> 00:22:30.580 free trade system and the North's commerce must be reduced to less than one half of what 284 00:22:30.580 --> 00:22:37.620 it now is. Our labor could not compete. Newark, New Jersey Daily Advertiser, a Republican paper 285 00:22:37.620 --> 00:22:43.900 warned on April 2nd 1861 that the Southerners had quote, apparently taken to their bosoms 286 00:22:43.900 --> 00:22:48.580 the liberal and popular doctrine of free trade and they might be willing to go toward free 287 00:22:48.580 --> 00:22:52.740 trade with the European powers which must operate to the serious disadvantage of the 288 00:22:52.740 --> 00:22:57.980 north as commerce will be largely diverted to the southern cities. You can imagine free 289 00:22:57.980 --> 00:23:03.500 trade in the south, high tariffs in the north, commerce will be diverted to southern cities. 290 00:23:03.500 --> 00:23:08.900 The New Jersey Advertiser said, we apprehend that the chief instigator of the present troubles, 291 00:23:08.900 --> 00:23:14.060 South Carolina, have all along for years been preparing the way for the adoption of free 292 00:23:14.060 --> 00:23:18.960 trade and must be stopped by the closing of the ports in the south by the US military. 293 00:23:18.960 --> 00:23:21.900 This is what the newspapers were saying. We cannot allow free trade. We have to bring 294 00:23:21.900 --> 00:23:27.620 the army down there and close those ports. And they did. Fort Sumter was a customs house. 295 00:23:27.620 --> 00:23:31.100 Lincoln's decision to wage war in the south was just what was needed to break the log 296 00:23:31.100 --> 00:23:37.100 and the dogjam behind which the Whig political agenda, Henry Clay's agenda, had languished for decades. 297 00:23:37.100 --> 00:23:42.100 Another aspect of Lincoln in office is the demolition of civil liberties. 298 00:23:42.100 --> 00:23:51.100 There are several big books written about this where he ruled by decree for months without the advice of the consent of Congress, 299 00:23:51.100 --> 00:23:57.100 assumed war powers, he declared martial law, confiscated private property, suspended habeas corpus, 300 00:23:57.100 --> 00:24:27.100 Congress, conscripted railroads, censored telegraph lines, imprisoned 30,000 Northern citizens without trial, deported a member of Congress, Clement Volandegam of Ohio, for merely disagreeing with Lincoln's war policies at a Democratic Party rally back at home, shut down hundreds of newspapers, created three new states, Kansas, West Virginia and Nevada, in order to rig the 1864 elections to the benefit of the wildly unpopular Republicans, and had army thugs brutally beat judges who questioned his 301 00:24:27.100 --> 00:24:28.100 Authority. 302 00:24:28.100 --> 00:24:32.500 This is all in any history books that you can dig out of any good university library. 303 00:24:32.500 --> 00:24:35.340 The federal government became massively centralized. 304 00:24:35.340 --> 00:24:40.500 We introduced occupational licensing taxes, stamp taxes, inheritance taxes, manufacturing 305 00:24:40.500 --> 00:24:45.260 taxes, the income tax, and the internal revenue bureaucracy was created and it has never gone 306 00:24:45.260 --> 00:24:48.820 away during this time. 307 00:24:48.820 --> 00:24:54.180 Historian Leonard Curry says this, remember I started by saying that in 1860 the only 308 00:24:54.180 --> 00:24:58.440 The only contact the average citizen had with the government was the post office. 309 00:24:58.440 --> 00:25:01.980 Historian Leonard Currie says this about the end of this war. 310 00:25:01.980 --> 00:25:06.680 Every citizen now had direct contact with and felt the direct influence of the federal government. 311 00:25:06.680 --> 00:25:09.480 A great centralizing force had been set into motion. 312 00:25:09.480 --> 00:25:13.980 The needs of the government had resulted in a drastic redrawing of the federal tax base. 313 00:25:13.980 --> 00:25:18.480 Never again would it be contracted to a pre-war scope. 314 00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:21.780 The National Currency Act created central banking. 315 00:25:21.780 --> 00:25:23.980 Corporate welfare was run amuck. 316 00:25:23.980 --> 00:25:29.940 You remember at the time of the Emancipation, the Confederate Army in 1862 was winning the 317 00:25:29.940 --> 00:25:30.940 war. 318 00:25:30.940 --> 00:25:34.580 Lincoln and the Republicans decided to spend millions of dollars building railroads in 319 00:25:34.580 --> 00:25:40.860 Nevada at that time, which indicates to me that the real purpose really was corporate 320 00:25:40.860 --> 00:25:46.180 welfare for the railroads, centralized government financed by high tariffs. 321 00:25:46.180 --> 00:25:53.140 They were just so eager to do this that even in the onslaught of the war, they had to build 322 00:25:53.140 --> 00:25:56.540 of Railroads in Utah and Nevada. 323 00:25:56.540 --> 00:25:59.740 War crimes, for centuries, the rules of war 324 00:25:59.740 --> 00:26:02.660 had evolved to a consensus, more or less, 325 00:26:02.660 --> 00:26:04.940 that only the combatants should be targeted. 326 00:26:04.940 --> 00:26:07.580 But this all changed when the Union Army intentionally 327 00:26:07.580 --> 00:26:12.220 targeted civilians in war. 328 00:26:12.220 --> 00:26:14.180 In the Shenandoah Valley in 1864, 329 00:26:14.180 --> 00:26:17.820 after the Confederate Army had been defeated and left 330 00:26:17.820 --> 00:26:20.180 the Shenandoah Valley, the entire place 331 00:26:20.180 --> 00:26:26.980 was destroyed and burned down as a Colonel Sheridan reported back to Ulysses Grant. 332 00:26:26.980 --> 00:26:31.460 We had destroyed over 2,000 barns filled with hay and farming implements, over 70 mills 333 00:26:31.460 --> 00:26:35.860 filled with flour and wheat. We have driven in front of the Army over 4,000 head of stock, 334 00:26:35.860 --> 00:26:40.020 have killed an issue to the troops, not less than 3,000 sheep. Tomorrow I will continue 335 00:26:40.020 --> 00:26:44.380 the destruction of wheat, forage, et cetera, down to Fishers Hill. When this is completed, 336 00:26:44.380 --> 00:26:49.940 the valley will have but little in it for man nor beast. Nobody was left but women and 337 00:26:49.940 --> 00:26:55.380 and Old Men and Children. This is in the valley. I know there's no army there. Sherman was 338 00:26:55.380 --> 00:27:01.180 the most barbaric of all the Union generals in 1862, long before his march to the sea. 339 00:27:01.180 --> 00:27:07.700 His policy was in response to Confederate army soldiers firing on Union gunboats in the Mississippi 340 00:27:07.700 --> 00:27:14.980 River in Memphis, he would arbitrarily break into a home and kill the residents. This is 341 00:27:14.980 --> 00:27:25.980 He says in a biography of Sherman, that in one case, they broke into the house of a white family, the name was White, and they beat to death the 23-year-old boy there. 342 00:27:25.980 --> 00:27:30.980 Then in Sherman's, in the collected works of Sherman, there's a letter from him to Ulysses Grant saying, 343 00:27:30.980 --> 00:27:37.980 Please act with, quote, magnanimity toward the white family, because they were unionists after all. 344 00:27:37.980 --> 00:27:44.980 He was a pyromaniac. He set to fire at Jackson, Mississippi, after the Confederate Army had evacuated, after they were gone. 345 00:27:44.980 --> 00:27:53.980 He reserved special energy for burning down the houses of old friends and acquaintances he had known when he lived and worked in Mississippi and Louisiana before the war. 346 00:27:53.980 --> 00:27:57.980 Sherman was a harsh racist and anti-Semite, not a nice guy. 347 00:27:57.980 --> 00:28:05.980 His biographer Michael Fellman said, quote, Sherman was apoplectic about black recruitment and wholeheartedly loathing in his characterization of blacks. 348 00:28:05.980 --> 00:28:08.480 Sherman, in his memoir, he warned, quote, 349 00:28:08.480 --> 00:28:11.480 the country will soon swarm with dishonest Jews. 350 00:28:11.480 --> 00:28:15.480 It's well known that Grant expelled all Jews from his command. 351 00:28:15.480 --> 00:28:20.980 I'm not exaggerating when I said he was a vicious racist and anti-Semite. 352 00:28:20.980 --> 00:28:23.480 Sherman's chief engineer, Colonel Poe, 353 00:28:23.480 --> 00:28:28.480 was deeply bothered at the sight of dead babies and women in Atlanta during the shelling, 354 00:28:28.480 --> 00:28:30.480 and Sherman called this, quote, 355 00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:33.480 a beautiful sight because it would end the war quicker. 356 00:28:33.480 --> 00:28:42.480 During the march through Georgia, right here, Sherman boasted of having destroyed $100 million worth of property with his troops carrying off another $20 million. 357 00:28:42.480 --> 00:28:53.480 One Illinois officer wrote home and said that they would quote, run people from their houses, sometimes kill them at their own doors and then take everything of value and burn the rest. 358 00:28:53.480 --> 00:29:02.480 Shelby Foote in his Civil War trilogy said this about, Sherman said that his men were crazy to get into South Carolina, his word crazy. 359 00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:07.480 By the way, he once thanked Ulysses S. Grant for helping me when I was crazy. 360 00:29:07.480 --> 00:29:10.480 He apparently lost his mind at one point, and Grant was his friend. 361 00:29:10.480 --> 00:29:15.480 And Grant wrote back and thanked him for helping me when I was an alcoholic. 362 00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:19.480 A very charming collection of letters. 363 00:29:19.480 --> 00:29:27.480 But what he says about this, ladies were hustled from their chambers in Columbia, South Carolina. 364 00:29:27.480 --> 00:29:29.480 Their ornaments plucked from their persons. 365 00:29:29.480 --> 00:29:35.680 Men and women bearing off their trunks were seized and in a moment the trunk burst asunder with the stroke of an axe or a gun butt. 366 00:29:35.680 --> 00:29:39.280 The contents laid bare, rifled, and the residues sacrificed to the fire. 367 00:29:39.280 --> 00:29:45.480 The soldiers plundered and drank. There were no reports of raped white women, but the black women of the city suffered terribly. 368 00:29:45.480 --> 00:29:51.180 Three months after the end of the war, three months after Sherman, or after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, 369 00:29:51.180 --> 00:29:54.780 Sherman was sent out west and put in charge of the Indian Wars. 370 00:29:54.780 --> 00:29:58.580 Now think about that. The war is over and what do they do? 371 00:29:58.580 --> 00:30:04.180 They go out and start killing off Indians, and the policy was to kill as many Indians, 372 00:30:04.180 --> 00:30:08.340 including women and children as possible, and herd the rest to, quote, where they can 373 00:30:08.340 --> 00:30:10.500 be watched, according to Sherman. 374 00:30:10.500 --> 00:30:16.940 Sherman, I swear this is true, this comes from his collected works, the phrase he used 375 00:30:16.940 --> 00:30:21.780 to describe this was, quote, the final solution to the Indian problem, end quote. 376 00:30:21.780 --> 00:30:25.820 Of course, that's a phrase that Hitler adopted 70 years later. 377 00:30:25.820 --> 00:30:32.580 And why, and Sherman instructed Sheridan to go out and carry this out, to kill him, typically 378 00:30:32.580 --> 00:30:38.220 they would go into a village with cannon and machine guns and all the weaponry they had 379 00:30:38.220 --> 00:30:42.220 and just kill everybody. Sherman promised that he would handle the Eastern press if 380 00:30:42.220 --> 00:30:47.600 there was any talk of atrocities. Leave it up to me, as he says in his collected works. 381 00:30:47.600 --> 00:30:52.740 And here's why Sherman, how Sherman rationalized killing off the Indians. In his words, quote, 382 00:30:52.740 --> 00:30:57.740 We are not going to let a few thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress of the railroads. 383 00:30:57.740 --> 00:31:02.740 A work of national and worldwide importance, I regard the railroad as the most important element 384 00:31:02.740 --> 00:31:06.740 now in progress to facilitate the military interests of our frontier. 385 00:31:06.740 --> 00:31:14.740 Sherman's biographer John Marzelak said he viewed the Indians as he viewed the recalcitrant Southerners 386 00:31:14.740 --> 00:31:21.740 during the war and the newly freed people after the war as resistors to the legitimate forces of an ordered society. 387 00:31:21.740 --> 00:31:37.740 Sherman's final solution came about by the 1880s and all I'll say is most Americans what they know about the Indian War seems to be Custer's last stand where Custer and 263 of his men lost their lives. 388 00:31:37.740 --> 00:31:45.740 I think it's a great tragedy that Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and the others were not with Custer on that day. 389 00:31:45.740 --> 00:31:51.740 These people were genocidal maniacs. 390 00:31:51.740 --> 00:31:57.740 In conclusion, Lincoln was the progenitor of the 20th century welfare-warfare state. 391 00:31:57.740 --> 00:32:04.740 The great principle of the Declaration of Independence, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the government, was destroyed. 392 00:32:04.740 --> 00:32:09.740 The philosophy of the country was changed from federalism to nationalism. 393 00:32:09.740 --> 00:32:39.740 And the acquisition of the Louisiana territory in the early part of the century, the 1846 invasion of Mexico and the annexation of Texas, the ruthless dispossession of the Indians, threats against Canada, pervasive talk of the nation's manifest destiny reaching all the way to China, and the war for southern independence were all component parts of the American century of empire and that's what the war for southern independence was about, in my opinion. Thank you. 394 00:32:39.740 --> 00:32:41.740 Thank you very much.