Lysander Spooner on Lincoln's War (1870)

Ever wonder what the abolitionists thought about Abraham Lincoln's war, its purported motive of "saving the union," and the claim that it was fought to free the slaves?

Here's what leading abolitionist philosopher Lysander Spooner had to say about it all in 1870 (highlights bolded by me)

Now, what is true in Europe, is substantially true in this country. The difference is the immaterial one, that, in this country, there is no visible, permanent head, or chief, of these robbers and murderers who call themselves "the government." That is to say, there is no ONE MAN, who calls himself the state, or even emperor, king, or sovereign; no one who claims that he and his children rule "by the Grace of God," by "Divine Right," or by special appointment from Heaven. There are only certain men, who call themselves presidents, senators, and representatives, and claim to be the authorized agents, FOR THE TIME BEING, OR FOR CERTAIN SHORT PERIODS, OF ALL "the people of the United States"; but who can show no credentials, or powers of attorney, or any other open, authentic evidence that they are so; and who notoriously are not so; but are really only the agents of a secret band of robbers and murderers, whom they themselves do not know, and have no means of knowing, individually; but who, they trust, will openly or secretly, when the crisis comes, sustain them in all their usurpations and crimes.

What is important to be noticed is, that these so-called presidents, senators, and representatives, these pretended agents of all "the people of the United States," the moment their exactions meet with any formidable resistance from any portion of "the people" themselves, are obliged, like their co-robbers and murderers in Europe, to fly at once to the lenders of blood money, for the means to sustain their power. And they borrow their money on the same principle, and for the same purpose, viz., to be expended in shooting down all those "people of the United States" -- their own constituents and principals, as they profess to call them -- who resist the robberies and enslavements which these borrowers of the money are practising upon them. And they expect to repay the loans, if at all, only from the proceeds of the future robberies, which they anticipate it will be easy for them and their successors to perpetrate through a long series of years, upon their pretended principals, if they can but shoot down now some hundreds of thousands of them, and thus strike terror into the rest.

Perhaps the facts were never made more evident, in any country on the globe, than in our own, that these soulless blood-money loan-mongers are the real rulers; that they rule from the most sordid and mercenary motives; that the ostensible government, the presidents, senators, and representatives, so called, are merely their tools; and that no ideas of, or regard for, justice or liberty had anything to do in inducing them to lend their money for the war [i.e, the Civil War]. In proof of all this, look at the following facts.

Nearly a hundred years ago we professed to have got rid of all that religious superstition, inculcated by a servile and corrupt priesthood in Europe, that rulers, so called, derived their authority directly from Heaven; and that it was consequently a religious duty on the part of the people to obey them. We professed long ago to have learned that governments could rightfully exist only by the free will, and on the voluntary support, of those who might choose to sustain them. We all professed to have known long ago, that the only legitimate objects of government were the maintenance of liberty and justice equally for all. All this we had professed for nearly a hundred years. And we professed to look with pity and contempt upon those ignorant, superstitious, and enslaved peoples of Europe, who were so easily kept in subjection by the frauds and force of priests and kings.

Notwithstanding all this, that we had learned, and known, and professed, for nearly a century, these lenders of blood money had, for a long series of years previous to the war, been the willing accomplices of the slave-holders in perverting the government from the purposes of liberty and justice, to the greatest of crimes. They had been such accomplices FOR A PURELY PECUNIARY CONSIDERATION, to wit, a control of the markets in the South; in other words, the privilege of holding the slave-holders themselves in industrial and commercial subjection to the manufacturers and merchants of the North (who afterwards furnished the money for the war). And these Northern merchants and manufacturers, these lenders of blood-money, were willing to continue to be the accomplices of the slave-holders in the future, for the same pecuniary considerations. But the slave-holders, either doubting the fidelity of their Northern allies, or feeling themselves strong enough to keep their slaves in subjection without Northern assistance, would no longer pay the price which these Northern men demanded. And it was to enforce this price in the future -- that is, to monopolize the Southern markets, to maintain their industrial and commercial control over the South -- that these Northern manufacturers and merchants lent some of the profits of their former monopolies for the war, in order to secure to themselves the same, or greater, monopolies in the future. These -- and not any love of liberty or justice -- were the motives on which the money for the war was lent by the North. In short, the North said to the slave-holders: If you will not pay us our price (give us control of your markets) for our assistance against your slaves, we will secure the same price (keep control of your markets) by helping your slaves against you, and using them as our tools for maintaining dominion over you; for the control of your markets we will have, whether the tools we use for that purpose be black or white, and be the cost, in blood and money, what it may.

On this principle, and from this motive, and not from any love of liberty, or justice, the money was lent in enormous amounts, and at enormous rates of interest. And it was only by means of these loans that the objects of the war were accomplished.

And now these lenders of blood-money demand their pay; and the government, so called, becomes their tool, their servile, slavish, villanous tool, to extort it from the labor of the enslaved people both of the North and South. It is to be extorted by every form of direct, and indirect, and unequal taxation. Not only the nominal debt and interest -- enormous as the latter was -- are to be paid in full; but these holders of the debt are to be paid still further -- and perhaps doubly, triply, or quadruply paid -- by such tariffs on imports as will enable our home manufacturers to realize enormous prices for their commodities; also by such monopolies in banking as will enable them to keep control of, and thus enslave and plunder, the industry and trade of the great body of the Northern people themselves. In short, the industrial and commercial slavery of the great body of the people, North and South, black and white, is the price which these lenders of blood money demand, and insist upon, and are determined to secure, in return for the money lent for the war.

This programme having been fully arranged and systematized, they put their sword into the hands of the chief murderer of the war**, and charge him to carry their scheme into effect. And now he, speaking as their organ, says, "LET US HAVE PEACE."

The meaning of this is: Submit quietly to all the robbery and slavery we have arranged for you, and you can have "peace." But in case you resist, the same lenders of blood-money, who furnished the means to subdue the South, will furnish the means again to subdue you.

These are the terms on which alone this government, or, with few exceptions, any other, ever gives "peace" to its people.

The whole affair, on the part of those who furnished the money, has been, and now is, a deliberate scheme of robbery and murder; not merely to monopolize the markets of the South, but also to monopolize the currency, and thus control the industry and trade, and thus plunder and enslave the laborers, of both North and South. And Congress and the president are today the merest tools for these purposes. They are obliged to be, for they know that their own power, as rulers, so-called, is at an end, the moment their credit with the blood-money loan-mongers fails. They are like a bankrupt in the hands of an extortioner. They dare not say nay to any demand made upon them. And to hide at once, if possible, both their servility and crimes, they attempt to divert public attention, by crying out that they have "Abolished Slavery!" That they have "Saved the Country!" That they have "Preserved our Glorious Union!" and that, in now paying the "National Debt," as they call it (as if the people themselves, ALL OF THEM WHO ARE TO BE TAXED FOR ITS PAYMENT, had really and voluntarily joined in contracting it), they are simply "Maintaining the National Honor!"

By "maintaining the national honor," they mean simply that they themselves, open robbers and murderers, assume to be the nation, and will keep faith with those who lend them the money necessary to enable them to crush the great body of the people under their feet; and will faithfully appropriate, from the proceeds of their future robberies and murders, enough to pay all their loans, principal and interest.

The pretense that the "abolition of slavery" was either a motive or justification for the war, is a fraud of the same character with that of "maintaining the national honor." Who, but such usurpers, robbers, and murderers as they, ever established slavery? Or what government, except one resting upon the sword, like the one we now have, was ever capable of maintaining slavery? And why did these men abolish slavery? Not from any love of liberty in general -- not as an act of justice to the black man himself, but only "as a war measure," and because they wanted his assistance, and that of his friends, in carrying on the war they had undertaken for maintaining and intensifying that political, commercial, and industrial slavery, to which they have subjected the great body of the people, both black and white. And yet these imposters now cry out that they have abolished the chattel slavery of the black man -- although that was not the motive of the war -- as if they thought they could thereby conceal, atone for, or justify that other slavery which they were fighting to perpetuate, and to render more rigorous and inexorable than it ever was before. There was no difference of principle -- but only of degree -- between the slavery they boast they have abolished, and the slavery they were fighting to preserve; for all restraints upon men's natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree.

If their object had really been to abolish slavery, or maintain liberty or justice generally, they had only to say: All, whether white or black, who want the protection of this government, shall have it; and all who do not want it, will be left in peace, so long as they leave us in peace. Had they said this, slavery would necessarily have been abolished at once; the war would have been saved; and a thousand times nobler union than we have ever had would have been the result. It would have been a voluntary union of free men; such a union as will one day exist among all men, the world over, if the several nations, so called, shall ever get rid of the usurpers, robbers, and murderers, called governments, that now plunder, enslave, and destroy them.

Still another of the frauds of these men is, that they are now establishing, and that the war was designed to establish, "a government of consent." The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this -- that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot. This idea was the dominant one on which the war was carried on; and it is the dominant one, now that we have got what is called "peace."

Their pretenses that they have "Saved the Country," and "Preserved our Glorious Union," are frauds like all the rest of their pretenses. By them they mean simply that they have subjugated, and maintained their power over, an unwilling people. This they call "Saving the Country"; as if an enslaved and subjugated people -- or as if any people kept in subjection by the sword (as it is intended that all of us shall be hereafter) -- could be said to have any country. This, too, they call "Preserving our Glorious Union"; as if there could be said to be any Union, glorious or inglorious, that was not voluntary. Or as if there could be said to be any union between masters and slaves; between those who conquer, and those who are subjugated.

All these cries of having "abolished slavery," of having "saved the country," of having "preserved the union," of establishing "a government of consent," and of "maintaining the national honor," are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats -- so transparent that they ought to deceive no one -- when uttered as justifications for the war, or for the government that has suceeded the war, or for now compelling the people to pay the cost of the war, or for compelling anybody to support a government that he does not want.

The lesson taught by all these facts is this: As long as mankind continue to pay "national debts," so-called -- that is, so long as they are such dupes and cowards as to pay for being cheated, plundered, enslaved, and murdered -- so long there will be enough to lend the money for those purposes; and with that money a plenty of tools, called soldiers, can be hired to keep them in subjection. But when they refuse any longer to pay for being thus cheated, plundered, enslaved, and murdered, they will cease to have cheats, and usurpers, and robbers, and murderers and blood-money loan-mongers for masters.

**Editor's Note: Spooner's "chief murderer" reference is to Union General and then recently elected President Grant

Now, abolitionism itself was never anywhere near the size most make it out to be and was thoroughly a fringe movement, though one that lots of people paid attention to closely.

Exactly correct. Abolitionism as it existed among the lunatics of New England was the movement which had coopted and rejected the basic thesis of the colonization movement, which had been popular even in the South. The New England radicals didn't simply want slavery abolished as it had been done in the British colonies, they wanted it accomplished by means of slave uprisings and the slaughter of all white people living in the states where slavery was legal, regardless of whether they owned slaves themselves or not. They were also adamantly opposed to returning Africans to Africa, even those who had recently been smuggled in here in defiance of the law.

These same lunatics wanted capitalism destroyed at a stroke. They were never a majority as you observed.

ROTFLMAO. For as often as people get slandered as Commies or Marxists by neo-confederates for 'sin' of pointing out the lies and gross distortions in you Lost Cause myths, I find it hilarious that you print a tract by a radical left-wing anarchist like Spooner as a justification for your side of the argument.

Thanks for demonstrating that you've missed the point entirely and made a fool of yourself in doing so.

For over a century your side of the debate has cast itself as the heir to abolitionism and based on that title you stake out a claim to some unnamed moral highground on slavery. You have nothing of the sort and instead come from a tradition of the yankee war machine, its unjustly waged war, its coerced obedience, and its political - as opposed to moral - motives.

Faced with an authentic abolitionist such as Spooner you are repulsed as undeniably the guy was a fringe extremist. But that was exactly what abolitionism embodied, and Spooner as one of it's leaders filled the role of a brilliant yet flamboyant crackpot.

Revisionist yankeeland stole the name of abolitionism as the root of its supposed moral claim to justify an immorally waged war. Only one problem - the real abolitionists were still there and the crackpots pitched a fit when their fringe movement was usurped by political power grabbers to justify their agenda and behavior. That's why Spooner was so mad, and that is why his commentary is so telling - it exposes as a fraud the whole of your side's claim to abolitionism and, by popularly promoted albeit flawed inference, morally-grounded anti-slavery activism.

And as a side note, most political historians tend to include Spooner as a libertarian or anarcho-libertarian philosopher. He's still a fringer, but he's not the same as a leftist anarchist ala the marxian communalism you are probably referencing.

In case you missed this info on another thread....

The Blumenfeld book has gotten very hard to find. I don't understand why he hasn't done another edition; there is not one available even at his website. It covers crucial material.

Frank's book has just come out in the last month. I highly recommend it to anyone who aspires to freedom for themselves or their progeny.

These are two books that, IMO, you must have to know truthful American history. Both deal with the Socialist-Unitarian-Communist-humanist-egalitarianist rejection of Christianity. Frank Conner's book goes into great detail in exposing what has been and is being done not only to the South but to civilisation as we know it. In other words, all men and women who are not simply fair-weather Christians MUST read these books!

Is Public Education Necessary? by Samuel Blumenfeld

The South Under Siege 1830 - 2000/ A History of the Relations Between the North and the South by Frank Conner

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SOUTHERN HISTORY WITH THE HAIR ON

A new book titled, "The South Under Siege 1830 - 2000/ A History of the Relations Between the North and the South," by Frank Conner (me) will go on sale Monday (7/15/02). It is a 6 X 9 hardcover book, 752 pages, with bibliography and index, but no footnotes. (However, when discussing controversial material in the book, I generally cite my source.)

The thesis of this book is that various groups of Northern liberals have been waging a nonstop ideological war against the conservative white South from the 1830s to the present, using black civil rights as their primary weapon against us. The book tells what the liberals have done to us; why they said they were doing those terrible things; why they were actually doing them; and what the results have been. When you see that history from 1830 to 2000 laid out in one volume, you see that the liberals had a very different primary motive than that of aiding the blacks. I contend that they have been using the South as their battleground for the past 170 years to discredit Christianity in the US, and replace it with secular humanism (ideological liberalism) as the official religion of the US.

This book exposes the sickening hypocrisy and blatant viciousness of the Northern liberals in dealing with the conservative South. I believe that if you read this book, it will change forever your impressions of the North and the Northerners, and the South and the Southerners.

In its final chapter, the book proposes a fairly-detailed plan whereby the Southerners can --with the resources presently available to us-- mount a lawful ideological revolutionary war (i.e. of carefully-chosen words, not bullets) to reclaim our souls and our region from the ruinous rule of the liberals.

In researching this book, I just followed my nose --as is my wont; consequently, in its pages I gore some hitherto-sacrosanct sacred cows. In other words, this book is politically incorrect. If you like the way things are going in the South, don't buy this book! If you have delicate sensibilities, don't buy this book! If you are an ideological liberal, don't buy this book! For everybody else, there is nothing else like this book on the market-- and there may never be another one like it.

The price of the book is $37.40 postpaid to residents of Georgia; or $34.95 postpaid to everyone else in the continental US. To order it, please send your check to:

Collards Publishing Company
P.O. Box 71996
Newnan, Georgia 30271-1996.

Sorry, no e-mail or telephone orders, or discounts for volume, or sales to booksellers (whom I admire tremendously, but I simply don't have the margin for that built into this first edition), or via other venues.

Frank Conner

Thanks for demonstrating that you've missed the point entirely and made a fool of yourself in doing so.

For over a century your side of the debate has cast itself as the heir to abolitionism and based on that title you stake out a claim to some unnamed moral highground on slavery.

Thanks for demonstrating yet again that you have no conception of the politics and sentiment of the people of the time. Spooner was an abolitionist and a very radical one at that. Abolitionists only made up a small fraction of the anti-slavery side in that age. The vast majority of anti-slavery people, both north and south, were like Lincoln who favored the gradual elimination of slavery because the understood the political and economic realities. Radicals like Spooner wanted an immediate end to slavery, fire and brimstone for slave owners, and were perfectly willing to destroy the constitution and the nation to reach that goal. To say, as you do, that one could only be pro-slavery or be an abolitionist is like saying that the anti-abortion fight of today one can only be an abortionist or a member of Operation Rescue.

Spooner was the ying to Ruffin's yang. Neither gave a damn for the nation. They were irresponsible radicals and nothing but minor footnotes to the great events of the age.

The politicians seized his movement as their own after the fact and started using it to justify their own continued political gains. Spooner being a "true believer" was naturally repulsed (as was Garrison from time to time in his dealings with Lincoln). So in flamboyant Lysander Spooner style, he lashed out with this essay.

It would be interesting to see some of the things Garrison said about Lincoln.....and Wendell Phillips said....but then, Lincoln was a first-rate politician who wasn't letting much out of his hat, I don't think, about what he really intended to accomplish with the Civil War. I have posted that I suspect he always, from 1856 forward, intended to end slavery in the South, by securing the Presidency and then resorting either to constitutional crisis, or a constitutional novelty, or to allowing open conflict to arise.

I've been posting over on the other thread ("Area Confederate Soldiers") so I've been pretty busy.

The New England radicals didn't simply want slavery abolished as it had been done in the British colonies, they wanted it accomplished by means of slave uprisings and the slaughter of all white people living in the states where slavery was legal, regardless of whether they owned slaves themselves or not.

That's a very heavy charge, 'Dees. You're asserting that the Yankee abolitionists essentially wanted emancipation of the black slaves so that they could murder white Southerners ... that they were advocating genocide at one remove. Wow. I've never seen that one before.

It's worth noting that a lot of abolitionists came out of New England seminaries -- but this would be the ultimate in hellfire-and-damnation from the New England pulpit. What, exactly, did the Southerners do that pissed these people off so royally?

Is there a quote anywhere, about that genocidal rage you attribute to them, where we can read the lethal wish in the original? Or have you read someone who attributed that motive to them?

Thanks for demonstrating yet again that you have no conception of the politics and sentiment of the people of the time.

Oh, I don't think anything of the sort has happened. You're just mad that I called you on missing the entire point of this thread and needed to throw out an attack to cover yourself.

Spooner was an abolitionist and a very radical one at that.

Most abolitionists were very radical, and I fully concede Spooner was one of them, though his radical drive was more restrained than the murderers and domestic terrorists of his movement at the same time.

Abolitionists only made up a small fraction of the anti-slavery side in that age.

5% of the northern population according to John Calhoun in 1847. Most estimates put the number at between 5-10% by 1860.

The problem is that abolitionism is most frequently equated, be it accurate or not, with opposition to slavery on "moral" grounds and its name is the one seized by northerners to justify their cause.

The vast majority of anti-slavery people, both north and south, were like Lincoln who favored the gradual elimination of slavery because the understood the political and economic realities.

I'll agree with that, holding that you concede their understanding of political and economic realities to be just that - many opposed slavery for economic and political reasons, not the moral ones frequently attributed to them. You may see this evidenced throughout their writings. Lincoln's famous Peoria speech mentions it when he declares the purpose of opposing slavery's expansion into the territories - to retain those territories for free white laborers to escape to without the competition of blacks. I also invite you to check out Alexis de Tocqueville's commentary on the same subject where he asserted that most northerners hold anti-slavery positions not for the concern of the slaves but for themselves and their economics.

You'll also note that this is Spooner's very grievance in the above essay. He complains that the moralistic claim being made to have freed the slaves was itself fraudulent because the war was not waged to free the slaves and they were only freed because doing so benefitted the northern cause. He continues noting that had they wished the moral title they claim they needed only to say so when they undertook the cause of anti-slavery but they had not.

Radicals like Spooner wanted an immediate end to slavery, fire and brimstone for slave owners

Yes.

and were perfectly willing to destroy the constitution and the nation to reach that goal.

Now that's interesting, because that is exactly what Spooner argued had happened when they did it by what was supposedly "the other way." History gives credibility to his characterization in the most obvious of ways. After all, was not the nation physically destroyed by the war to a degree never before and never since seen? Did not Lincoln trample upon the Constitution's plain meaning in order wage that same war?

To say, as you do, that one could only be pro-slavery or be an abolitionist

I see you've taken up the art of scarecrow conduction. Show me where I ever said anything of the sort as I don't believe you can. I on the other hand would be more than happy to provide you with writing samples from James McPherson where he uses abolitionism and Lincoln interchangably as if they were one in the same to display what he purports to have been THE northern position.

That is a very biased view of Lincoln’s feelings toward slavery. Yes, he opposed it on economic grounds (like Spooner, he saw slavery as a flawed economy that rendered free-labor politically and economically subservient to the wealthy landed class). But any fair reading of Lincoln’s words on slavery show that he also opposed it on moral, religious and philosophical grounds as well. Go here for a compilation of Lincoln’s words on slavery I’d also remind you of the numerous southerners who justified slavery solely on economic grounds and refused to attempt to make a moral case for it.

After all, was not the nation physically destroyed by the war to a degree never before and never since seen? Did not Lincoln trample upon the Constitution's plain meaning in order wage that same war?

The reality is that the largest economic expansion in the history of the world occurred in the 30 years after the war. It is true that much of the south did not enjoy as many fruits from that expansion as did the rest of the nation. But that was the fault of the south itself for attempting to resurrect their pre-Civil War economic and class systems and not breaking the power of the aristocrat class that dominated their politics and economies. The opportunity was there. They did not avail themselves to it.

As to “trampling upon the Constitution” that is your opinion. My opinion is that the southern states had no constitutional right to unilateral secession and attempted to destroy the constitution with their actions.

I apologize to you if you have not done that, but you know other Lincoln bashers constantly do --- the most notable recently has been Thomas DiLorenzo and his sock-puppet, Walter Williams. (sorry to Dr. Williams --- I respect his economic knowledge, but as a historian --- he’s a pitiful.) Neither, it appears, understands the dynamics of the age or the broad-spectrum of opinions that drove those dynamics. I’m not sure what quotes from McPherson you have in mind, but I would caution that there is and was a significant difference between “abolitionism” and Abolitionists. The American Colonization Society sought the gradual abolition of slavery for over 40 years. Would anyone call members of that organization like Madison or Clay Abolitionists? They were both slave-owners! Abolitionism was a belief that slavery should be ended, and Abolitionists were an organized political faction whose sole purpose was to end slavery through any means available. I return to my analogy over abortion today. I am opposed to abortion on demand for moral, religious and philosophical reasons rooted in our founding documents. But I have no patience with Operation Rescue or other organizations that are willing to use violence to end the practice. I want to work within the laws to settle the issue. A century from now, will some demagogue like DiLorenzo say that I wasn’t opposed to abortion?

Does he mean that the federal government could have abolished chattel slavery in 1861 and that would somehow have prevented the War, which was founght essentially because southerners saw Lincoln's election as a harbinger of a distant threat to the institution? Huh?

The Union in 1861 was given only three choices by the South. Fight, allow the Union to dissolve, or institute massive federal interference with the individual and states' rights of northerners to protect the institution of slavery.

Their own writings contain all of the insanity I mentioned.

It is not to be disguised, that a war has broken out between the North and the South. -- Political and commercial men are industriously striving to restore peace; but the peace, which they would effect, is superficial, false, and temporary. True, permanent peace can never be restored, until slavery, the occasion of the war, has ceased. The sword, which is now drawn, will never be returned to its scabbard, until victory, entire, decisive victory, is ours or theirs; not, until that broad and deep and damning stain on our country's escutcheon is clean washed out -- that plague spot on our country's honor gone forever; -- or, until slavery has riveted anew her present chains, and brought our heads also to bow beneath her withering power. It is idle -- it is criminal, to hope for the restoration of the peace, on any other condition. Gerrit Smith to the New York Anti-Slavery Society Presbyterian Church in Peterboro NY, October 21, 1835

Note that Smith said this in 1835. These people actually believed they were at war with the South that early. Read some of the works of Garrison in his whackjob newspaper, The Liberator. He and his fellow lunatics were unable to restrain themselves from fantasizing about slaughter and subjugation.

"I do not believe in battles ending this war. You may plant a fort in every district of the South, you may take possession of her capitals and hold them with your armies, but you have not begun to subdue her people. I know it means something like absolute barbarian conquest, I allow it, but I do not believe that there will be any peace until 347,000 men of the South are either hanged or exiled." Wendell Phillips, at the pulpit of Henry Ward Beecher's Church

"If I had the power, I would arm every wolf, panther, catamount and bear in the mountains of America, every crocodile in the swamps of Florida, every negro in the South, every devil in hell, clothe them in the uniform of the Federal army and turn them loose on the rebels of the South and exterminate every man, woman and child south of the Mason and Dixon's line. I would like to see negro troops, under the command of Butler, crowd every rebel into the Gulf of Mexico, and drown them as the devil did the hogs in the Sea of Galilee." "Parson" Brownlow, ex-governor of Tennessee

These last two are wartime speeches, but you can read similar sentiments in the prewar speeches of these lunatics in any collection of their prose. Look into some of Beecher's sermons and the writings in the abolitionist broadsheets of the day. It's surprising to me that you don't already know about the radicals.

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