Consequences Of The War Against The South

Let us trace the leading consequences of the War Against the South: there is, first, the enormous toll of death, injury, and destruction. There is the complete setting aside of the civilized “rules of war” that Western civilization had laboriously been erecting for centuries: instead, a total war against the civilian population was launched against the South. The symbol of this barbaric and savage oppression was, of course, Sherman’s march through Georgia and the rest of the South, the burning of Atlanta, etc. (For the military significance of this reversion to barbarism, see F.J.P. Veale, Advance to Barbarism). Another consequence, of course, was the ending of effective states’ rights, and of the perfectly logical and reasonable right of secession – or, for that matter, nullification. From now on, the Union was a strictly compulsory entity.

Further, the Civil War foisted upon the country the elimination of Jacksonian hard money: the greenbacks established government fiat paper, which it took 14 long years to tame; and the National Bank Act ended the separation of government from banking, effectively quasi-nationalizing and regulating the banking system, and creating an engine of governmentally sponsored inflation.

So ruthlessly did the Lincoln administration overturn the old banking system (including the effective outlawing of state bank notes) that it became almost impossible to achieve a return – impossible that is, without a radical and almost revolutionary will for hard money, which did not exist. On the tariff, the virtual destruction of the Democratic Party led to the foisting of a high, protective tariff to remain for a generation – indeed, permanently, for the old prewar low tariff was never to return. It was behind this wall of tariff-subsidy that the “trusts” were able to form. Further, the administration embarked on a vast program of subsidies to favored businesses: land grants to railroads, etc. The Post Office was later monopolized and private postal services outlawed. The national debt skyrocketed, the budget increased greatly and permanently, and taxes increased greatly – including the first permanent foisting on America of excise taxation, especially on whiskey and tobacco.

Thus, on every point of the old Federalist-Whig vs. Democrat-Republican controversy, the Civil War and the Lincoln administration achieved a neo-Federalist triumph that was complete right down the line. And the crushing of the South, the military Reconstruction period, etc. assured that the Democratic Party would not rise again to challenge this settlement for at least a generation. And when it did rise, it would have a much tougher row to hoe than did Van Buren and Co. in an era much more disposed to laissez-faire.

But this was not all: for the Civil War saw also the inauguration of despotic and dictatorial methods beyond the dreams of the so-called “despots of ’98.” Militarism ran rampant, with the arrogant suspension of habeas corpus, the crushing and mass arrests in Maryland, Kentucky, etc.; the suppression of civil liberties and opposition against the war, among the propeace “Copperheads” – the persecution of Vallandigham, etc.; and the institution of conscription. Also introduced on the American scene at this time was the income tax, reluctantly abandoned later, but to reappear. Federal aid to education began in earnest and permanently with federal land grants for state agricultural colleges. There was no longer any talk, of course, about abolition of the standing army or the navy. Almost everything, in short, that is currently evil on the American political scene, had its roots and its beginnings in the Civil War.

Because of the slavery controversy of the 1850s, there was no longer a single libertarian party in America, as the Democratic had been. Now the free-soilers had left the Democrat ranks. But, especially after Dred Scott had pushed the Douglas “Freeport Doctrine” to the fore as libertarian policy, there was hope for a reunited Democracy, especially since the Democrat party was still very good on all questions except slavery. But the Civil War wrecked all that, and monolithic Republican rule could impress its neo-Federalist program on America to such an extent as to make it extremely difficult to uproot.

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) was the author of Man, Economy, and State, Conceived in Liberty, What Has Government Done to Our Money, For a New Liberty, The Case Against the Fed, and many other books and articles. He was also the editor – with Lew Rockwell – of The Rothbard-Rockwell Report.

Copyright © 2008 Ludwig von Mises Institute
All rights reserved.

Via Southern Nationalist

An Open Letter To The Atlanta History Center

"I recently toured your exhibit on Abraham Lincoln entitled With Malice Toward None. Both the exhibit and the related brochure contain a number of historical errors.

The exhibit claims that Lincoln did everything to avoid war. He could have easily prevented war by removing Federal troops from South Carolina property. He left them there to provoke the South into firing the first shot. South Carolina had sent agents to Washington for the purpose of negotiating a troop removal, but Lincoln would not agree to that. Lincoln placed a naval blockade on the ports of North Carolina while that state was still in the Union. Naval blockade is an act of war. Lincoln could have ended the Civil War at any time by bringing his troops home.

On page 7 of the brochure you say that Lincoln was a single-issue candidate for high office. I am curious to know what that issue was because it wasn’t slavery. Lincoln stated unequivocally in his 1861 Inaugural Address that he wasn’t going to free the slaves. You made a vague statement to this effect in your brochure.

On page 10 you say that Lincoln treated secession as an artificial crisis manufactured by designing Southern politicians. The Southern States were paying about 85% of all revenues collected by the Federal Government. Congress was controlled by the Northern States and that is where most of the money was being spent. The South wanted free trade with England and France without the burden of high import tariffs.

The New England States were the first to consider secession in the early 19th Century. Our Declaration of Independence establishes the right of secession as the founding principle of this country. Peaceful secessions have occurred throughout history. In 1905 Norway seceded from Sweden and not a shot was fired.

On page 12 you mention Lincoln’s attack on slavery. There was no attack on slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation did not even free the slaves in the border states where Lincoln had political control. Lincoln’s father-in-law and Ulysses S. Grant’s wife owned slaves throughout the war.

On page 17 you said that Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman were men who understood the brutality of war. I can’t argue with this one. In his General Order number 11, Grant instructed his troops to arrest and deport all Jews in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi. Sherman charged 700 female mill workers in the Atlanta area with treason for making cloth for the Confederate Army. These women were herded into rail cars like cattle and shipped to Indiana. Few ever returned. A large number of slaves following behind Sherman’s troops were allowed to drown in Ebenezer Creek in South Georgia. The Union Army murdered, tortured, raped, and robbed tens of thousands of civilians. Union prison camps were worse than Andersonville. Thousands of Northerners were imprisoned without a trial for speaking out against Lincoln’s invasion of the South. One of them was the grandson of Francis Scott Key. The behavior of the Union Army under Lincoln is the most shameful page in American history.

Pages 23 and 24 deal with the Union Pacific Railroad which Lincoln built with public funds. The eastern terminus of this railroad just happened to be on land that Lincoln had recently purchased. Lincoln scholar Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo describes this project as the mother of all political payoffs. Many prominent Republicans cashed in on construction contracts. General Sherman led a campaign of ethnic genocide against the Native Americans of the Great Plains in order to clear the way for this railroad. I noticed that the Union Pacific Corporation gave generous support for your Lincoln exhibit.

So why can’t we tell the truth about Abe Lincoln? His ties to European socialists have been documented. Our Federal Government, public schools, and news media are almost completely controlled by the socialist left. Lincoln’s mercantilist policies make him a convenient hero for fans of big government. The myth that Lincoln freed the slaves protects him from too much scrutiny. No one wants to be called a racist for excoriating Abe.

This country is long overdue for an honest debate on Lincoln and the Civil War. Would the Atlanta History Center be interested in making this a reality?"

Joe Jordan
Smyrna, GA
jordanwolf@bellsouth.net

What Kerouac, Kennedy, Lincoln, and Practicing Medicine Have Taught Me About Liberty

Realizing the true nature of the War Against Southern Independence helped me understand what my great-great grandfather Louis Thomas Hicks was fighting for. As his daughter put it (in an address given at the unveiling of the North Carolina Memorial at Gettysburg), "They wrote a constitution in which each state should be free." The rest *HERE.
*Kindness of Steve and AMEN!

"I say we cannot know your suffering, but this we do know; We love and honour you, veterans, and are justly proud of the heritage you have given us. Just so long as warm blood flows in the veins of man, so long will the words 'Confederate Veteran' cause that blood to tingle with glorious pride, and, if there be one among us, born in our glorious Southland who is not so thrilled, every drop of stagnant blood proclaims him bastard to the South-a coward to all the world."
This and more HERE.
Joseph Powell Pippen, Esq.
My Grandfather

The Burning Of Columbia

See/read it HERE.

Columbia SC, Sam Davis Youth Camp......

......since we are here this week, I thought it appropriate to include this SC article on the NC site.

"It has pleased God......in that Providence which is so inscrutable to man, to visit our beautiful city with the most cruel fate which can ever befall States or cities. He has permitted an invading army to penetrate our country almost without impediment; to rob and ravage our dwellings, and to commit three-fifths of our city to the flames. . . . The schools of learning, the shops of art and trade, of invention and manufacture; shrines equally of religion, benevolence and industry; are all buried together, in one congregated ruin. Humiliation spreads her ashes over our homes and garments, and the universal wreck exhibits only one common aspect of despair. It is for us, as succinctly but as fully as possible, and in the simplest language, to endeavor to make the melancholy record of our wretchedness as complete as possible." Please read the rest Sherman's "Gracious" Visit To Columbia, SC