Here’s Tom DiLorenzo and Tom Woods answering Andrew Napolitano’s questions about the Lincoln Myth.
DiLorenzo and Woods can be answering YOUR questions too, about history and economics, if you sign up for one of their upcoming courses!
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/15781/dilorenzo-and-woods-discussing-the-lincoln-myth-on-freedom-watch/
DiLorenzo and Woods discussing the Lincoln Myth on Freedom Watch
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I knew most of those things. My American history class taught that Lincoln suspended the writ of habeus corpus, that Lincoln pushed some edges to keep Missouri, Maryland, and Kentucky in the Union, and everyone knows that the civil war was a nasty war on both sides.
But obviously, the civil war happened because some people thought it was OK to own other people, and other people thought slavery was evil.
For God’s sake, the Civil War was not about slavery. It was about taxation and the role of central government. Lincoln didn’t even bring up the slavery issue until two years into the war, mainly as a means to quell dissatisfaction among Union states that were on the verge of rebellion. People had to get some sort of moral justification for taxation, debased paper money, and outright industry nationalization.
The Southern states wouldn’t have put up a fight had there not been a massive tariff that used Southern commerce to finance Northern industrial subsidies and infrastructure projects. Slavery was dying long before the Civil War. Military conflict wasn’t even remotely necessary. Leaning on the only economically solvent part of the country to keep the part that was going bankrupt in the black does tend to spark conflict.
This is one subject on which I have to go against the consensus here. Wars are used to settle irreconcilable differences. And as far as American wars go this is the bloodiest one till date. Disputes over tariffs and subsidies are not irreconcilable differences over which people fight long bloody battles with their own brethren. In the US especially there always has been plenty of avenues within the political process to address such grievances.
Slavery is different. It is the strong and polarizing opinion that Northerners and Southerners had about slavery that created the circumstances under which people like Lincoln come to power. If jury nullification (popularized here by Ron Paul and Thomas Wood) was used in the North against the Fugitive Slave Act, the same was used in the deep South to acquit people who victimized blacks.
Nothing about that war makes sense except in the context of slavery.
On a side note I was aware of the controversial decisions Lincoln made long before Thomas DiLorenzo popularized them. They are covered by most Lincoln scholars and is also touched upon in Ken Burn’s famous documentary, ‘Civil War’.
If you claim that the civil war was fought primarily to free slaves, then maybe you should refute J. Murray’s statement that “Lincoln didn’t even bring up the slavery issue until two years into the war, mainly as a means to quell dissatisfaction among Union states that were on the verge of rebellion.” You should show him to be factually inaccurate. If he is correct, then how could the civil war have been about slavery?
To support your argument, you should also show that “people” fight wars for heated emotional reasons, because government merely interprets the General Will of the People. You should disprove that is it government that fights wars for economic reasons, and then convinces the public with emotional pleas. If the latter, does government create the General Will and apply it to the People? Again, if it is the latter, how could the civil war have been about slavery?
Also, you may want to check out the Lincoln vs. Douglas debates, which would show you the error of your statement that “the strong and polarizing opinion that Northerners and Southerners had about slavery that created the circumstances under which people like Lincoln come to power.” Lincoln did not campaign on the promise of freeing slaves. If Lincoln was not elected president on the promise of a war to free the slaves, then how could the civil war have been about slavery?
J. Murray’s statement that
Factually incorrect.
The war started on April 12, 1861. Lincoln talked specifically about slavery on February 27, 1860 in his Cooper Union Speech in New York before he became President. Lincoln became President on March 4, 1861.
The Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the South. Slavery continued in North among the border states with Kentucky and Delaware being the last to end slavery by way of the 13th amendment in Dec. of 1865.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_states_(American_Civil_War)
I’ve always felt this document (you should read it sometime) is very transparent in that it shows Lincoln’s true motives…that anti-slavery was a military strategy and not a moral or ethical crusade.
It is easy enough to read. Again taking a politician’s word at face value is not a bright idea. The Emancipation Proclamation played an important role in setting the stage for irrevocably ending slavery all over the United States. So it is significant.
Had Lincoln signed on a document that proclaimed all slaves to be free, but lacked the capacity to bring it about, that document would have been of lesser significance. In fact it would have been just a piece of paper.
Wars are used to force others to acquiesce to the will of the one initiating the conflict. I don’t think they settle anything, except who is the more powerful group.
In this particular case, the North did not engage the South to end slavery, it engaged the South to end secession. The argument was first and foremost about not allowing other people to make choices for themselves but enforcing the will of someone else upon them. The war may well have ended chattel slavery, and none can deny that the South believed chattel slavery was important enough to secede (it was the most important thing to them arguably, with tariff second based on my reading of the literature), but it replaced it with political slavery.
With the civil war the idea that the vast majority of the nation truly consented to be governed was utterly destroyed.
On this regard I think there are none better than Lysander Spooner, who was against both chattel slavery and political slavery. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/No_Treason
You are right, war only settles who is the most powerful group. That is how irreconcilable differences get settled. Whatever the more powerful group says goes, after the war.
To say ‘the North did not engage the South to end slavery’ is too abstract for me to comment upon. However I am convinced that the war happened only because of slavery. All other issues are subsidiary issues. The image of 600,000 people having such strong opinions over tariff rates so as to kill each other would have been laughable if it was not so tragic.
And besides real slavery is of lesser value than political slavery. The tradeoff is fair IMO, except of course to the people who value real slavery want to preserve certain political freedoms to sustain it. Think of it as losing your leg to save your life or something along that lines.
Slavery clearly was a major reason for the war. The South wanted to secede because they wanted to keep slaves, after all. And they wanted to keep slaves because growing cotton was labour-intensive. Whilst it is true that Lincoln talked a lot about the evils of slavery, he didn’t make any promises about abolishing it until near the end of the war! He wanted to ignore how the US came about by reversing the principle of secession- the union was considered more important. (I don’t think slavery was dying out- cotton was too important to the would-be aristocrats to permit that.)
“To say ‘the North did not engage the South to end slavery’ is too abstract for me to comment upon.”
What does that mean? It is true that the Lincoln administration most certainly did not attack the South over the issue of slavery. Lincoln openly originated and supported a Constitutional admendment that would prevent the federal government from interfering with slavery. Lincoln cared about maintaining the Union so that he could enact his dream of an all-powerful federal government.
Unfortunately, because the South (along with many northern states at the time) was endorsing the monstrous practice of slavery, Abraham Lincoln and the North are cast as the good guys and the South as the bad guys. The reality was that both the Union government and the Confederate government were bad guys — as governments always are. However, the South had the right to secede for the same reason that the colonies had the right to secede from Great Britain.
Is your point that the war was justified because, as you mistakenly claim, it was fought “because of slavery”? The mass slaughter of thousands of people, the destruction of one-half of the country, and the imposition of tax slavery onto the U.S. are even worse crimes than slavery and hence are not justified because they are enacted in the supposed abolition of slavery.
But in any event, as has been repeatedly stated, and as you fail to adequately refute, the war was NOT caused by slavery because the originator of the war, Abraham Lincoln, did NOT invade the South to end slavery.
Also, you refute an earlier poster’s comment by saying that Lincoln discussed the issue of slavery during the presidential election. So what? During various elections, George W. Bush discussed his devotion to free-market principles. It meant nothing. As soon as Lincoln gained power, he showed where his true interests lay by immediately supporting the Corwin Amendment as a means of reconcilation with the South, and he pledged to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act.
That the South ignored Lincoln’s attempt at reconciliation demonstrates that the South seceded over more than just slavery. Yes, one of the main reasons the South seceded was the issue of slavery, but the tariff issue is significantly underplayed by most of today’s historians, who want to depict the war as a holy crusade. After all, the South had been complaining about the tariff for decades, and the Morrill Tariff, a major campaign issue of 1860, was denounced in the South and passed only after secession. Furthermore, in his inaugural, President Davis raised the issue of the tariff as one reason for secession, AND the confederate constitution established a revenue-only tariff of no more than 10%. Therefore, obviously, the tariff was a serious issue for both northern elements — who wanted to continue to loot the South — and southern elements — who wanted to escape the yoke of oppressive taxation. The point here is not that the tariff was the main cause for secession, but the tariff was a close second to slavery — moreso than most of today’s historians admit. Furthermore, Lincoln’s reason for invading the South most certainly involved his desire to collect tariff revenue instead of some mythical quest to end slavery that Lincoln idolators have concocted in the years since.
Right he did not promise to outright abolish slavery, the fact that he actually did it is good enough.
Nathan February 23, 2011 at 9:48 pm
You are speaking about the Corwin Amendment. Lincoln did not originate it. It was proposed by Thomas Corwin and endorsed by President James Buchanan. Lincoln did express support for it, but again you make the same mistake of assuming politicians to be straight and talk straight. There are later and earlier events that can indicate such an excercise to be nothing more than a political gimmick.
My point all along. Whatever the other reasons where, they can be negotiated and managed. But slavery is not like that. Either someone is a slave or someone is not. There is no half way point. Without slavery there would be no reason for war.
Ok, if that is the way you want to go, in that spirit I claim that all of Linclon’s promises to preserve the Union and his supposed support for the Corwin Amendment was all just hot air blown by a political windbag. He wanted to end slavery all along. We know that because that is what he enventually did.
“Disputes over tariffs and subsidies are not irreconcilable differences over which people fight long bloody battles with their own brethren.”
Really? Have you ever heard of the American Revolution? Boston Tea Party? Stamp Act?
No doubt slavery was a major factor. It was the issue at hand. However, the underlying principle was simply the right, as debated and understood under both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, that states had the right to determine most issues (those not specifically delegated to the Federal Govt – and slavery was one of those issues) themselves. It was not the prerogative of the Fed Govt to determine whether a state was slave or free. That is why NY didn’t finally outlaw slavery until the mid 1850s. That was why Grant and his wife owned slaves AFTER the war – because they could.
You are telling me that Stonewall Jackson, who specifically went out of his way to educate southern blacks fought for the South because of slavery? That is nuts. He fought because Virginia had the right to self determination.
To ignore the issue of slavery regarding the conflict is disingenuous. I agree. But to say that it was the cause of the war is absolutely asinine. LIncoln specifically stated that if he could keep the union together by keeping slavery then he would. He also stated that he was most concerned with getting his tariffs.
Below, you claim that we shouldn’t listen to Lincoln’s words, since all politicians are liars (paraphrase). Fine. Then lets look at the Emancipation Proclamation that freed not one slave. Every place where Lincoln COULD free them, he kept them in bondage. When Fremont declared slaves free in his district, Lincoln countermanded him and returned them to slavery.
His words and his actions clearly show that slavery was a secondary issue.
Yes I have. And if you have tried reading Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty, you will know that those singular events do not provide a full account of the reasons for the American Revolution.
Which is why the Articles of the Confederation, the constitution, the rights of the states etc., became debatable issues. There is usaly a hot button issue that stirs such debates. In this case we all know what that was.
Grant’s or Jackson’s personal take on the issue is not directly relevant here. Their role in this conflict where as army officers. Only their skill as military commanders are directly relevant.
The Emancipation Proclamation that freed not one slave?
You have not substantiated that point, but let us assume it to be true. Did it still not facilitiate in irrevocably dismantling the institution of slavery in the country?
Right, once the war starts, winning it becomes the primary issue. If freeing the slaves too early means losing the war, then the whole exercise would be meaningless would it not? So there where strategic reasons for Lincoln to do what he did. Again this is not some little known secret.
“Yes I have. And if you have tried reading Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty, you will know that those singular events do not provide a full account of the reasons for the American Revolution.”
I agree. That is the point. You are reducing the War Between the States to a single issue, when it is NEVER a single issue that causes the conflict. BTW, you snipe at others for personal attack, yet you do the same thing. Why do you assume that I have not read Rothbard?
Basically, you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. Anything Lincoln said doesn’t count, because he was a lying politician. Any policy he supported/advocated or enacted is also irrelevant, because he was just trying to win the war. So you have set as his core value the abolition of slavery – refuting his own words and actions before and during the war.
I have no doubt that LIncoln was anti-slavery. I think his words and actions convey this. I am also convinced that he did not go to war to abolish it. Again, his words and actions convey this. He only made slavery a primary issue when it was politically expedient (such as to keep the European powers from siding with the Confederacy).
In that, I agree with you. He was a lying politician.
Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty has four volumes. Finishing it is an effort. I am still at volume one.
In this case it was the elephant in the room. Writing never in CAPS does not change it.
Nah. I am just trying to make sense of things.
I have good reasons to think that it is the anti-slavery aspirations of the American people that empowered him and made him the most potent symbol of that cause.
Exactly.
No culture or society in the history of forever has ever gone to war over moral grounds. War is fought for only one thing – power. Power over resources, power over people, power over territory. Without the gain of power, or the avoidance of the loss of power, wars aren’t waged.
The reason the North waged war was because they had the most to lose if the South seceeded. Slavery was some side issue to justify mass-scale combat because “we went to war over taxes” doesn’t garner support.
Power over resources? – Power over salves?
salves=resources?
Who waged war on whom?
North waged war on South. South = taxes. North losing taxes = war.
How amusing. Power over resources, power over people, power over territory is exactly what slavery was about. Slaves are people and resources. There was a strong southern lobby to eager to spread this disease to new federal territories where it was outlawed. Economically speaking, the Northern states where more prosperous than the South. Slave based economies are not very competitive. Free market ones are. Yet J. Murray thinks it was all about taxes. Ok.
I am glad you brought about the whole thing about power over resources, power over people and power over territory. It dovetails nicely with the slavery thing that you are deliberately and unsuccessfully trying to ignore.
“The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. ”
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html
Seriously, that was in his first inaugural address. The war was about taxes. “Pay your taxes and we won’t invade”. That’s the sum of it.
Isn’t it ironic, you with the opinion you hold are more likely than me to take Lincoln’s words. You must be very easy to fool.
Perhaps the irreconcilable difference was the power that the federal government was exerting over the state governments, especially the Southern states. Of course, this would include federal tariffs and subsidies, but only as a detail in the larger power struggle. The slavery card naturally came up partly because it was such a prominent feature of the Southern states, and partly because those leaders who were wanting the war, on both sides, needed a “cause” for people to rally around so they would support the war.
The power struggle between Federal and State governments and for that matter State and local governments and even very branches of the same government in the United States is as old as the country itself, so much so that it is a defining aspect of the political landscape. It continues to this day. How many times has that lead to war? Once. What is the one issue that people have strong opinions about for which there is no middle ground or any room for compromise? Slavery. Why ignore the elephant in the room?
No, obviously, the Civil War happened because Lincoln opposed the right of secession and believed it was morally justified to murder thousands of people in order to crush the right of self-government. As Lincoln repeatedly said, he did not invade the South over slavery. As he himself said ad nauseum, he invaded the South over taxation and the right of secession. Hence, without these reasons, there would have been no Civil War; therefore, slavery did NOT cause the Civil War. As Lincoln himself said in his first inaugural address, he was perfectly willing to protect the institution of slavery so long as the South stayed in the Union. Early on in the war, he repeatedly returned escaped slaves to their SOUTHERN masters as a pseudo-peace offering.
In addition, primarily on what grounds did Lincoln and much of party oppose slavery? Not because, as you claim, they thought it was evil. As they repeatedly said, they opposed slavery because they didn’t want black labor outcompeting white labor. Yes, there was a moral aspect, but whenever they debated the issue, the Republican leadership continually declared the opposition to slavery because it competed with white labor.
What is your evidence for the contention that the war was “obviously” caused because one group thought it was okay to own people and another group did not? What about the many slaveowners in the North whose slaves were not freed by the Emancipation Proclamation?
It was not slavery that inspired Lincoln to start the war. It was his belief in a large, powerful federal government funded heavily by tariff revenue and his realization that the right of secession would make his lifelong dreams of heading such a government impossible. In his quest to transform the U.S. into a mercantilist empire — the true political goal that he pursued for decades, not the abolition of slavery — he assaulted people’s basic liberties and ordered the mass murder of thousands of southern civilians.
You use the word ‘Lincoln reputedly said’, ‘Lincoln himself said’, etc., to vindicate your stand, as if politicians are known to be straight talkers and can be taken at their word. As for the large and powerful Federal government, think about it from the point of view of Lincoln or the people who elected him into office. They see a mostly decentralized power structure in which slavery is being practiced by certain people with impunity. Not only that these people are trying to spread it to the new territories.
People who see slavery to be highly immoral may have a problem with that. Would you blame them if they considered under such circumstances that a powerful central government would be a better alternative? With all the problems that it comes with, there is still one major problem that is missing. The Achilles’ heel that would undo the whole experiment of building a society based on liberty – ‘chattel slavery’.
So when does it become a virtue to preserve the Union? Only when in doing so gives liberty a better chance.
“So when does it become a virtue to preserve the Union? Only when in doing so gives liberty a better chance.”
So obedience forced at the butt of a rifle guarantees freedom?
HUH?
George Orwell, please pick up the courtesy phone.
If a slave master and his cronies are the ones being forced, then maybe.
George Orwell has dialed the wrong number. The call is actually for you.
Hello? Is anyone there? Man, what the f*ck is wrong with my phone?
I’d also like to add that the statement that people only use wars to settle irreconcilable differences and that tariffs and subsidies are not serious enough reasons to fight long bloody battles against their brethren demonstrates a serious ignorance of humankind. The reality is that throughout human history, horrible wars have been fought over the most petty and insignificant of reasons. That for some reason the humans in this particular period of history were profoundly different than those that came before or after them is frankly absurd.
Further, we have learned from history that governments always use deception and misdirection to hide their true intentions and motivations, which we know was and has been done with slavery and the war. Again I ask, why would Lincoln or his devotees be any different?
You are being too vague to criticize. Nevertheless I will try. Calling me a Lincoln devotee is pure Ad hominem and will be ignored.
No one will participate in any war over reasons they think to be petty and insignificant, never mind what you and I think. So what you are in fact saying is that tarrifs and subsidies where significant reasons for people of that time to take guns and start killing each other. Seriously!?
This war saw a massive mobilization and touched countless lives in a personal manner. Think about it, most people at that time where illiterate. It was not the information age. People outside their field of expertise would not even know what tariffs or subsidies are. It is simply not something that directly impacts their lives.
Slavery is not like that at all. It touches everyone’s lives and no one needs a degree to understand what is happening or have strong feelings on the matter.
To say that war was fought over any silly or insignificant reason is to dishonor the memory of the more than 600,000 people who lost their lives in that tragedy.
Does this mean that all those Japanese soldiers are being dishonoured because their sacrifice did not result in the world worshipping their divine king, the head of the Japanese Royal Family? In every battle, one side loses, and the reasons for them fighting are usually disparaged. i think that worshipping royalty IS silly, and they were wrong to fight over it. AND I think that the South really wanted to retain slavery, and i will disparage any side that fights to retain it, and call their ‘sacrifice’ worthless. The size of the killing won’t ennoble any cause.
In their role as soldiers, soldiers respect other soldiers, even the enemy they fight and kill in the battle field. A soldier loses honor by act of cowardice, desertion or by committing atrocities. There is nothing libertarian about war, however, within the dynamics of war, there is an internal sense of proper and improper conduct. There is a long tradition behind it and lot of it is codified in the Geneva convention. There will be soldiers on both sides who will breach this and there will be those that don’t. Which means regardless of which side wins or loses, there will be heros and villains on both sides. Honor belongs to all soldiers who properly perform their duty.
For what it’s worth, I was a panelist for the full hour, in which Jefferson, Wilson, FDR, JFK, and Reagan were also discussed: http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/presidents-day-episode-of-freedom-watch/
The link appears to be broken.
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