An Abolitionist Defends the South

lrc ^ | 20-oct-2004 | dilorenzo

[stainlessbanner]

In the ongoing debate and discourse over the War to Prevent Southern Independence quite a few libertarians will admit that Lincoln was a consummate liar and conniver, a dictator, tyrant, protectionist, corporate tool, murderer of civilians, and a white supremacist to boot. But they refuse to take a stand on the war because, you see, the Confederate government was not a libertarian Nirvana; it was not perfect. Therefore, they say, one cannot conclude that the war was just or unjust: A pox on both their houses! Or worse yet, they condemn the Lincoln dictatorship but praise his "leadership" in a just cause.

Such muddle-headed confusion is not characteristic of all libertarians, of course; Murray Rothbard (in his LRC article, "Two Just Wars") argued forcefully that, imperfect as they were, the Confederates were justified in seceding from the union, and in defending themselves against Lincoln’s invading army. The great historian of liberty, Lord Acton, wrote to Robert E. Lee in 1866 that he saw in the South’s struggle for states’ rights nothing less than the defense of "our civilization," and the last bulwark against centralized state tyranny.

These great scholars did not fall into the trap of allowing the perfect (i.e., libertarian Nirvana) to be the enemy of the good. If the war was over the central government’s "right" to destroy the right of secession, which both Abraham Lincoln and the U.S. Congress insisted, then the South was in the right, according to both Rothbard and Acton. One need not defend or glorify the Confederacy in order to arrive at such a conclusion.

The same can be said of another libertarian icon, the nineteenth-century Massachusetts abolitionist and legal theorist, Lysander Spooner (1808–1887). In the introduction to The Lysander Spooner Reader, George H. Smith describes Spooner as "one of the greatest libertarian theorists of the nineteenth (or any other) century . . ." (p. vii). He argued for the unconstitutionality of slavery, central banking, the postal monopoly, legal tender laws, and myriad other offenses against liberty. And his "contempt for government was rivaled only by his contempt for fellow libertarians who compromised their principles" (p. viii).

Spooner and his entire family were abolitionists for decades prior to the war. He authored The Unconstitutionality of Slavery in 1845, which made him a great hero to the entire abolitionist movement; advocated the nullification of the Fugitive Slave Act by juries (a purely Jeffersonian, states’ rights position); called for slave insurrections aided by abolitionists like himself; and even hatched a plot to kidnap Virginia Governor Henry Wise and hold him as a hostage in exchange for John Brown.

Spooner also saw through the phoniness of the Lincoln regime and its diabolical quest for empire at the expense of hundreds of thousands of American lives. As George H. Smith writes, "Spooner stood nearly alone among radical abolitionists in his defense of the right of the South to secede from the Union" (p. xvii). To Spooner, the right of secession was "a right that was embodied in the American Revolution." Moreover, Lincoln’s war "erupted for a purely pecuniary consideration," not any moral reason.

Spooner’s views on the war are laid out in his famous 1870 essay, "No Treason," published as part of the above-mentioned Lysander Spooner Reader. He understood that the Northern business interests who were the backbone of the Republican Party of his time (also Lincoln’s time), whom he labeled "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 purpose of liberty and justice . . ." (p. 117). It was such interests, after all, that monopolized (and profited immensely from) the transatlantic slave trade, which was always centered in Providence, Rhode Island and Boston, Massachusetts.

The Northern financiers of the war who lent millions to the Lincoln government did not do so for "any love of liberty or justice," wrote Spooner, but for "the control of [Southern] markets" through tariff extortion (p. 118). Mocking the argument of the "lenders of blood money" as they addressed the South he wrote: "If you [the South] will not pay us our price [i.e., a high tariff] . . . we will secure the same price (and 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 . . ." (p. 118).

In return for financing a large part of Lincoln’s war machine, Spooner noted, "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" (p. 118). The war had led to "the industrial and commercial slavery" of all Americans, North and South.

Spooner was right about this: The Morrill Tariff, which initially doubled the average tariff rate from approximately 15% to 32%, first passed the U.S. House of Representatives during the 1859-60 congressional session, long before Lincoln’s election and any secession. Lincoln then signed no fewer than ten tariff-increasing bills so that the average tariff rate was escalated to 50–60 percent. These were not war tariffs; the average tariff rate remained in that historically high range until the income tax was finally adopted in 1913.

Lincoln’s National Currency Acts ushered in the era of central banking and Northern protectionists were ecstatic; they fully understood that dollar depreciation caused by inflation was a kind of backdoor protectionism since it made foreign goods sold in the U.S. more expensive. Spooner understood all of this perfectly well, even if too many contemporary libertarians do not.

Referring to President Ulysses S. Grant, Spooner also noted that the Northern business interests who controlled the Republican Party had "put their sword into the hands of the chief murderer of the war," who at the time was hypocritically saying, "Let us have peace" (p. 118). Spooner interpreted the crushing of the Southern secessionists at the hands of "murderers" like Grant as essentially saying: "Submit quietly to all the robbery and slavery [i.e., via tariffs and inflation] we have arranged for you, and you can have peace" (p. 118).

The Republican Party rhetoric of "saving the union" and "abolishing slavery" was all a sham, said Spooner. "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,’" the famous abolitionist wrote (p. 119). It was the U.S. government that established and enforced slavery, he noted. The U.S. flag flew over an American slave society almost twenty times longer than the Confederate flag did.

Spooner believed Abraham Lincoln was speaking the truth when he said that whatever he did with regard to slavery was not because of any sympathy for the slaves, but to secure his goal of crushing the secessionists. And, Spooner would add, to then use the apparatus of the U.S. state to politically dominate and financially plunder the South. They did not abolish slavery "as an act of justice to the black man himself, but only as ‘a war measure,’ and because they wanted his assistance . . . in carrying on the war they had undertaken for maintaining and intensifying that political, commercial, and industrial slavery . . ."(p. 119).

If the Northern regime really wanted only to abolish slavery, Spooner argued, then they could have followed the road to emancipation taken by all other nations on earth in the nineteenth century and ended it peacefully through compensated emancipation and by declaring slavery to be unconstitutional. The war was unnecessary to end slavery, said Spooner.

Spooner also ridiculed Lincoln’s ridiculous and absurd statement in the Gettysburg Address that he was waging war for the principle of "a government of consent," or government of the people, by the people, for the people, as his flowery rhetoric put it. In reality, the type of "consent" created by Lincoln’s war was: "everybody must consent, or be shot" (p. 120). This idea "was the dominant one on which the war was carried on." (Another libertarian icon, H.L. Mencken, was of the same opinion).

"All of 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," the great abolitionist declared (p. 121).

Lysander Spooner vigorously attacked the Lincoln regime and defended the Confederacy’s right to secede with the libertarian language of natural rights, consent, and social contract. He recognized that this was also the language of Jefferson Davis’s First Inaugural Address, and that the war was not initiated to "free the slaves," something that neither Lincoln nor the U.S. Congress ever said or thought, even if grossly uneducated Americans do today. After the war, writes George Smith, Spooner’s (and Davis’s) natural rights rhetoric "was no longer popular among Northern intellectuals, for this had been the language of treason and secession" (p. xix). The voluntary confederacy of states that was established by the founding fathers gave way to "the nation," by which was meant the consolidated, monopolistic, and tyrannical government in Washington.

Abraham Lincoln was deified after the war, with New England ministers comparing him to Moses, Abraham, or Jesus Christ himself (just as Jesus died for the sins of the world, they said, Lincoln supposedly died for America’s sins). The presidency itself and ultimately, the American state, also became deified. Smith quotes the Unitarian minister Henry Bellows as announcing after the war, "The state is indeed divine, as being the great incarnation of a nation’s rights, privileges, honor, and life" (p. xix). Essayist Walt Whitman expressed his own version of Spooner’s "consent or be shot" by writing, "the war taught America that a nation cannot be trifled with" (p. xix).

With the death of states’ rights, the creation of a consolidated, monopolistic state, and the disposal of the natural rights philosophy of the founders, Smith writes (p. xx) that Spooner could not have been at all surprised in the postwar years as he "watched the power of government accelerate at an astonishing rate" (see Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capabilities, 1877–1920; and Terry Anderson and P.J. Hill, The Birth of a Transfer Society).

[stainlessbanner]

dixieping

[stand watie]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

free the southland NOW,sw

[kipita]

I think I can frame your argument based on "Sweet Home Alabama" and the passion one has to preserve that versus "Wall Street and Corporate Criminals" and the lust one has for money, power and control. To put it simply, the "good natured, passionate, fun-loving southerners" vr. the "icy cold, hard and calculating northerners". I tend to agree a bit, but I think one has to examine the cause-effect relationship that occurred AFTER the civil war and that’s way too difficult. So, a better argument would be to accurately portray the lives of African Slaves in the North vr. South BEFORE the Civil War. And hey, it was just determined that Wall Street was initially built by African Slaves. Based on the latest information, the "powers that were" decided to "work them to death (usually around 40) and buy more”, as opposed to letting them reproduce and having to pay for that expense. This gives you a good start!

[kipita]

A better way of responding based on the South's perspective. I think?

1) Slavery was practiced and accepted around the world before America was formed.

2) The Northern US praticed Slavery as did the South, as did the world (as some African countries still do today).

3) Leading up to the American Revolution, the Northern US had much closer ties to England, and were uncertain who to back during the revolution. The Southern rebel passion predominated and the rest we know.

4) Due to its close ties to England, the North stayed close to England’s governance and the South prospered due to it’s fertile soil, slavery, and world markets for it products.

5) Civil War. Your article claims the purpose for the war was based on the affluence of the South vrs. the greed, corruption, world governance model, elitist controlling nature of the North, lead by Lincoln, a wealthy Northerner.

6) The affect of 140 years of casting the South as the “inhumane” player in slavery and casting the North as the “good” moral guys. Predictably, the Southerners feel a bit betrayed, manipulated, misunderstood, bitter and rebellious.

With all of the movies, books, propaganda, and distortion of history, one may find that the life of the slave was better in the South (vrs. the North and the World) and that would add credence to your article.

[GOPcapitalist]

Bump!

[w_over_w]

Hey Stainless~

Outstanding post . . . bttt!

[stainlessbanner]

Many thanks! Glad you dropped by w_over_w

[A Jovial Cad]

Ah...it all makes perfect (loony) sense...the first Republican president--BAD; the Republican Party--founded in sin (snicker) and therefore (presumably) BAD; the Southern secessionist Democrats--victimized angels pure as the driven snow and GOOD; and we even have silly talk of "lenders of blood money," too! Which, as everyone well knows, is simply antisemitic code-talk for "THE JEWS DID IT!"...(snicker)...what a scummy sandbox you Confederate sympathizers consistently seem to play in...

My question, and it is a serious one, is why a group of folks who consistently deride the first Republican president and the founding principles of the Grand Old Party feel a need to participate in a forum that is dedicated to electing as many Republicans to high office as possible? It's a curious disconnect...unless, I guess, one REALLY considers what's cowering beneath that "the Confederacy will rise again!" pointy hat--then it all starts to come into focus...

[kipita]

This article (including links) merely states the motives of Lincoln and his constituency versus the South and its right of self-governance. Moreover, in retrospect, the North fought based on a more “Colonial Power” rationale and the South, as we know, were Rebels. Why is this important?

Three Decisions of a “Colonial Power” in the 20th Century:

1. The establishment of Middle Eastern country boarders based on exploitation and to ensure internal conflict.

2. The establishment of Kashmir based on exploitation and to ensure external conflict.

3. Quite simply Diamonds, DeBeers, Destruction and Africa.

Where are the Rebels?

Specifically to your point, with the changes and all, the new Republican Party has a big tent. Part of which, are people who have old, rightful, justifiable passions that will never die.

[stainlessbanner]

This is a conservative forum, not a Republican forum. If you can't tell the difference, you ought to stop posting and read more.

[stainlessbanner]

Democrats used to be conservative, Republicans used to be more radical. The parties have flip-flopped positions on the political spectrum, but southern conservatism has remained a constant.

[4CJ]

This is a conservative forum, not a Republican forum. If you can't tell the difference, you ought to stop posting and read more.

The uneducated posters could begin with the Constitution, Elliot's Debates and the Federalist/Anti-federalist Papers.

[GOPcapitalist]

"lenders of blood money," too! Which, as everyone well knows, is simply antisemitic code-talk for "THE JEWS DID IT!".

Sorry, but the document from which that quote comes was written in 1867 long before the popularization of an explicitly anti-semitic connotation to that phrase. If you were not an ignorant dolt you would have taken the time to look up the context of that quote and found that it appears in an article deriding those northern financial interests who promoted the war as a device to (a) hedge their investments upon and (b) boost the sale of their industrial wares to the union army and federal government.

It's a curious disconnect

The only disconnect around here, snicker boy, is on your end. It appears to be of a triadic nature in which you erroniously connect two similar but distinct terms, "conservative" and "Republican," to an identical referent, which they are not.

[A Jovial Cad]

*...long before the popularization of an explicitly anti-semitic connotation to that phrase*

That "connotation" was current as code talk for antisemites as far back as the sixteenth century, if not earlier. So much so, in fact, that a popular English playwright & poet you've probably never heard of wrote a work titled *The Merchant of Venice* which referred explicitly to the theme of the lecherous Jewish creditor--indeed, the character's name was "Shylock."
You obviously spend a great deal more time posting and playing the resident "Johnny Reb" bright bulb than you do reading and learning--and it shows.

*It appears to be of a triadic nature in which you erroniously [Sic] connect two similar but distinct terms, "conservative" and "Republican," to an identical referent, which they are not.*

Wow...such fancy grammatical footwork to make such a factually threadbare point (what kind of adjective is "erroniously," BTW? I've never run into that in vernacular English...snicker...). But I understand the impulse: I was once an immature college freshman, and went around trying to impress and awe everyone with such highbrow semantics, too. But I moved on, grew up, matured, whatever you want to call it--and realized that the only person I was "impressing" with such galimatias was myself.
In any event, your compound sentence is basically grammatical gibberish--as any high school sophomore in an English class could easily discern--but the kernel of sense that can be gleaned from it is laughable. I don't know how they teach Logic 101 in the academic groves you cut your intellectual teeth in (..snicker..), but, if I were you, I'd demand a tuition refund.
Your "point," such as it is, seems to be that a syllogism cannot be made between Premise A. (Republicans tend to be conservative) and Premise B. (Conservatives, to the extent that they align themselves ideologically with a political party, are almost uniformly members of the GOP). This is a peculiar way to divide the particular from the specific, while ignoring the general, but it comes as no surprise: special pleaders nearly always indulge in such intellectual legerdemain to highlight a small point that, in some slight manner or interpretation, appears supportive of their position when seen by itself (*prima facie*), while ignoring the larger body of connected facts, conditions, and evidence to which it is but a subset.
In plain terms, pilgrim, it's wordy crap you've stirred around and then thrown against a wall with the hopes that it'll stick. It doesn't, at least with anyone who's ever genuinely read Plato's "Republic," as opposed to just excerpting cute "money quotes" from it. "Conservative" and "Republican" have become nearly interchangeable as descriptive terms both ideologically and culturally in this era--and you either well know it or as dense as your posts make you appear. Or if, as you seem to prefer, you want that in academic-speak: it is the irrefutable and undeniable ontology of this social epoch...(snicker)...

Ahhh...my oscitationary reflexes are starting to manifest themselves, so I must close...(snicker)... But in closing, and as a public service announcement, I'd urge you to drop the Ivory-Tower-pretensions act, and speak plainly to your points in the future. You make no one look ridiculous with such playacting at being a wise intellectual who can bandy about fancy language but yourself. Just a little free advice, that you may do with what you will...

[GOPcapitalist]

That "connotation" was current as code talk for antisemites as far back as the sixteenth century, if not earlier.

As usual you are simply full of it. The earliest english reference to "blood money" I could locate appears to be from the early 1500's referring simply to money that is paid to a killer or facilitator of killing in return for his crime. It derives as a modern english conceptual translation from the saxon/nordic term "wergeld" or "weregild" or "wehrgeld," geld/gild referring to money, meaning a price paid upon another's head, which dates back in common, recorded, and legal use to at least the reign of Ethelstan, who ruled Saxon england in the 900's. As late as Blackstone the term was still being referenced as simple homicide money with nothing even remotely to suggest that an inherent anti-semitic connotation existed.

Wow...such fancy grammatical footwork to make such a factually threadbare point (what kind of adjective is "erroniously," BTW? I've never run into that in vernacular English...snicker...).

I see you've revealed your profession: typo policeman, which is really to say unemployed loser who tries in vain to feel better about himself by trolling the internet in search of other people's typos and spelling errors while remaining seemingly oblivious to his own (In american english it's anti-semite with a hyphen and oscitation alone and oscitation, the noun, with no "ary," the addition of which would create an invention that is not even a word, BTW).

But I understand the impulse: I was once an immature college freshman

So what'd they boot ya for? Academic fraud, ineptness, or simply being unable to compete in an academic environment?

and went around trying to impress and awe everyone with such highbrow semantics, too.

Did they give you "oscitationary" reactions or were they still waiting for you to invent that word? As an aside, I find it relevant to note that you have repeated your previous triadic error, this time falsely associating the term "semantic" (dealing of or with word arrangements) with what is in fact a semiotic (dealing of or with the role of words as a sign) observation. Not that I would expect anything less from an illogical half educated twit as yourself...

Now, if you would like a genuine textbook example of contrived pseudo-intellectual verbosity (defined as the awkward insertion of a complex or pseudo-complex wording, of which the author's grasp is tenuous at best, when a simpler one would more than suffice), I direct your attention to the following passage. The highlights are free of charge:

But I moved on, grew up, matured, whatever you want to call it--and realized that the only person I was "impressing" with such galimatias was myself. In any event, your compound sentence is basically grammatical gibberish--as any high school sophomore in an English class could easily discern--but the kernel of sense that can be gleaned from it is laughable. I don't know how they teach Logic 101 in the academic groves you cut your intellectual teeth in (..snicker..), but, if I were you, I'd demand a tuition refund. Your "point," such as it is, seems to be that a syllogism cannot be made between Premise A. (Republicans tend to be conservative) and Premise B. (Conservatives, to the extent that they align themselves ideologically with a political party, are almost uniformly members of the GOP). This is a peculiar way to divide the particular from the specific, while ignoring the general, but it comes as no surprise: special pleaders nearly always indulge in such intellectual legerdemain to highlight a small point that, in some slight manner or interpretation, appears supportive of their position when seen by itself (*prima facie*), while ignoring the larger body of connected facts, conditions, and evidence to which it is but a subset. In plain terms, pilgrim, it's wordy crap you've stirred around and then thrown against a wall with the hopes that it'll stick. It doesn't, at least with anyone who's ever genuinely read Plato's "Republic," as opposed to just excerpting cute "money quotes" from it. "Conservative" and "Republican" have become nearly interchangeable as descriptive terms both ideologically and culturally in this era--and you either well know it or as dense as your posts make you appear. Or if, as you seem to prefer, you want that in academic-speak: it is the irrefutable and undeniable ontology of this social epoch...(snicker)... Ahhh...my oscitationary reflexes are starting to manifest themselves, so I must close...(snicker)... But in closing, and as a public service announcement, I'd urge you to drop the Ivory-Tower-pretensions act, and speak plainly to your points in the future. You make no one look ridiculous with such playacting at being a wise intellectual who can bandy about fancy language but yourself. Just a little free advice, that you may do with what you will...

Ironically, the very subject of our example offender's rant seems to be a denunciation and projection of the very same offense he commits. Returning to your illogical ramblings though...

Your "point," such as it is, seems to be that a syllogism cannot be made between Premise A. (Republicans tend to be conservative) and Premise B. (Conservatives, to the extent that they align themselves ideologically with a political party, are almost uniformly members of the GOP).

In which case you would be in error, though whether it is intentional or not remains to be seen. My point was nothing more than to highlight the error of your equation of the purpose of this forum with the Republican Party - an error that, as I noted previously, is triadic in nature for it falsely mistakes the referent of two similar but distinct terms. That you stubbornly persist in this error and now weave fanciful projections onto others as your primary means of escaping responsibility for it also suggests, perhaps, that instead of "snicker boy," as derived from your abnormally excessive exercise of spontaneous whim, the phrase "dyad boy" would better apply, so as to connote your twice-demonstated difficulty in matters that exceed the dyadic barrier.

[GOPcapitalist]

LG - check this new guy out if you want a laugh. He seems to think that he's Protagoras, though Ignatius Reilly would probably be more accurate in describing his psychological condition.

[A Jovial Cad]

*Ironically, the very subject of our example offender's rant seems to be a denunciation and projection of the very same offense he commits. Returning to your illogical ramblings though...*

It's called mockery. Your posts lend themselves so readily to it, after all. As usual, you've got that "AV projector" (snicker) turned on and going full throttle...

As to the rest, it's all twiddledee-la-la, blather, bubble, boil and snooker. It's a meaningless pile of words; keyboard cotton candy for the self-impressed. It's a parody of what a real scholar might say if such a specimen was present and accounted for. As has been shown, one isn't. Get back to me when you have something serious to say, or when East Popcorn State Community College finally comes through with that correspondence course degree...either/or.

[A Jovial Cad]

Ah...why am I not surprised? The great scholar and intellect can't manage by his poor lonesome...has to call in "reinforcements"...(snicker)...

[GOPcapitalist]

It's called mockery.

Indeed it is. Sadly you have yet to realize that you are its object.

Your posts lend themselves so readily to it, after all. As usual, you've got that "AV projector" (snicker) turned on and going full throttle...

Using stolen projectors to project about projecting. You're twisting yourself into an ever more convoluted web of idiocy with every post!

As to the rest, it's all twiddledee-la-la, blather, bubble, boil and snooker.

Are those the cousins of your frequently referred friend "snicker" or just a fit of denial from an obnoxious little twit who cannot come to terms with the fact that, yet again, he's been bested? Or perhaps a product of both, eh Ignatius? As I've remarked at a prior time, you're little more than a bag of illogical ironies. No, wait. Make that a gasbag.

Get back to me when you have something serious to say, or when East Popcorn State Community College finally comes through with that correspondence course degree.

Did they kick ya out as well? Boy, you're batting 0 for 2! Don't worry though - I hear that there are a few "colleges" out there looking for failed obnoxious twits not unlike yourself to fill their alumnist pools. Perhaps you could become ordained as a "bishop" from Southeastern Pensacola Internet Bible College. Or if that fails, hike on over to Claremont and get the Abratollah Jaffa to make you one of his imams