A Jeffersonian View of the Civil War

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/miller1.html ^ | Donald Miller

[VinnyTex]

Lincoln called up an army of 75,000 men to invade the seven southern states that had seceded and force them back into the Union. By unilaterally recruiting troops to invade these states, without first calling Congress into session to consider the matter and give its consent, Lincoln made an error in judgment that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. At the time, only seven states had seceded. But when Lincoln announced his intention to bring these states back into the Union by force, four additional states – Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas – seceded and joined the Confederacy. Slavery was not the issue. The issue was the very nature of the American union. If the President of the United States intended to hold the Union together by force, they wanted out. When these four states seceded and joined the Confederacy rather than send troops to support Lincoln’s unconstitutional actions, the Confederacy became much more viable and the war much more horrible.

From the time Lincoln entered politics as a candidate for state legislature in 1832, he championed a political agenda known as the "American System." First advocated by his idol and mentor, Henry Clay, it was a three-part program of protective tariffs, internal improvements, and centralized banking. This program "tied economic development to strong centralized national authority," as Robert Johannsen puts it in Lincoln, the South, And Slavery. Lincoln believed that import tariffs were necessary, at the expense of consumers. He believed that American industries needed to be shielded from foreign competition and cheap imported goods. The "internal improvements" he advocated were simply subsidies for industry, i.e., corporate welfare. Abraham Lincoln was the first president to give us centralized banking, with paper money not backed by gold.

The Constitution of the Confederate States of America forbid protectionist tariffs, outlawed government subsidies to private businesses, and made congressional appropriations subject to approval by a two-thirds majority vote. It enjoined Congress from initiating constitutional amendments, leaving that power to the constituent states; and limited its president to a single six-year term. When the South lost, instead of a Jeffersonian republic of free trade and limited constitutional government, the stage was set for the United States to become an American Empire ruled by a central authority. In starting his war against the Confederate States, Lincoln was not seeking the "preservation of the Union" in its traditional sense. He sought the preservation of the Northern economy by means of transforming the federal government into a centralized welfare-warfare-police state.

The failure of the South to win the War for Southern Independence was a blow to liberty. The Confederate lyrics to the song "Battle Cry of Freedom" read:

Down with the eagle
And up with the cross!
We’ll rally ‘round the bonny flag
We’ll rally once again
Shout, shout the battle cry of freedom

Paroled from the prison camp at Johnson’s Island, Ohio shortly before the end of the war, my grandparent Louis Hicks walked, barefoot, back to North Carolina to his home named "Liberty Hall" in the town of Faison. But instead of enjoying a new birth of freedom, he and his family, along with other people in the South, had to endure a twelve-year military occupation and an oppressive Reconstruction instituted by radical republicans.

Reflecting on the War for Southern Independence let us hope that the Confederate Battle Flag that Louis Thomas Hicks’ North Carolina regiment carried with it into battle at Gettysburg, with the cross of Scotland’s patron saint emblazoned on it, will come to be viewed in the 21^st century, not as an badge of slavery, which it is not, but as a symbol of opposition to centralized government power and tyranny.

Notes

The Confederate Battle Flag has 13 white stars superimposed on a blue Cross of St. Andrew, centered on a red backdrop. Each star represents a state that seceded from the Union, which includes Kentucky and Missouri, the last two states to be admitted into the Confederacy in late 1861. Throughout the war, however, they remained largely under Union control. St. Andrew was the younger brother of St. Peter and is the patron saint of Scotland.

The population of the United States in 1860 was 31,101,000, of which 21,244,000 lived in the North and 10,957,000 in the Confederacy. In the Confederate states 5,447,000 of these people were white, 133,000 free black, and 3,951,000 were slaves. There were 320,000 deaths in Union forces, 3.2 percent of the total male population; and 300,000 deaths in the Confederate forces, 9.7 percent of the (white) male population. This death rate, with the current population of the United States 284,050,000, would be equivalent to 6.5 million men being killed today. Most of those killed were teenagers and men in their 20s.

In his First Inaugural Address, for United States Lincoln uses the term Union. In his Gettysburg Address, however, instead of Union he uses the word nation, which implies a closer association of states under centralized control, as opposed to a looser association connoted by the word Union, of separate and sovereign states. Likewise, in his Second Inaugural Address Lincoln only uses the word Union when referring to the country as it was when he gave his First Inaugural Address four years earlier, before the war began; he uses the word nation for the country it had become in 1865. In these two later speeches he says that the war was fought to preserve the "nation," that the "nation" shall have a new birth of freedom, and that we must bind up the "nation’s wounds."

In a civil war the warring sides battle for control of the central government. The term "civil war" was coined in England in the 17^th century to identify the war fought between supporters of Charles I and the Parliamentarians led by Oliver Cromwell for control of the government. The South had no designs on the federal government of the North, headquartered in Washington, D. C. It did not want to run that government. The breakaway Southern States asserted their independence, like the American colonies did from Britain eighty-five years before, formed their own Confederate States of America and placed their seat of government in Richmond, Virginia.

The American Republic was founded on the concept that all men are created equal, with inalienable rights to life, liberty and property. Black slaves, being sentient human beings, should therefore be as equally free and independent, with equality under the law, as White human beings; but, as slaves, they were also someone’s property and subject to the due process of law in that regard. Federalist Paper No. 54 addresses the problem of counting slaves in the population with regard to legislative representation, concluding that slaves are divested as "two-fifths of the MAN" and three-fifths as capital, or property.

After the war Robert E. Lee also wrote, "The best men in the South have long desired to do away with the institution [of slavery], and were quite willing to see it abolished. But with them in relation to this subject is a serious question today. Unless some humane course, based on wisdom and Christian principles, is adopted, you do them great injustice in setting them free." (Thomas Nelson Page, Robert E. Lee: Man and Soldier [New York, 1911], page 38.) Lee did not own slaves (he freed his in the 1850s), nor did a number of his most trusted lieutenants, including generals A. P. Hill, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, J. E. Johnston, and J. E. B. Stuart.

The source references for these quotes can be found in Charles Adams’ book When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession.

Colonists also objected to the search and seizure of their property without a specific warrant, and to being denied the right of trial by jury, which the British instituted to help them more easily catch and imprison smugglers who avoided paying taxes on imported goods.

Suggested Reading

Books

Charles Adams, When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000)

In this book Charles Adams does to our understanding of the Civil War what Copernicus did to our ancestors’ understanding of the solar system. The sun does not rotate around the Earth and slavery did not cause the Civil War. Adams presents a compelling case for the true, financial cause of the war. A must read.

Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War (Chicago: Open Court, 1996)

With extensive documentation and in an erudite fashion, the author shows how the Civil War was, indeed, a disaster for liberty. The bibliographic essays at the end of each chapter all alone are worth the price of the book.

Francis W. Springer, War for What? (Nashville: Bill Coats Ltd., 1990)

A little known but very insightful view of the Civil War published a year before the author died at the age of 92. He puts the African slave trade, import tariffs, the South’s two-crop economy, Lincoln, and the true nature of the war into clear focus, anticipating Adams’ groundbreaking work by a decade.

David Gordon (Editor), Secession, State & Liberty (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998)

Eleven articles on secession based on papers presented at a conference on this subject by the Ludwig von Mises Institute in 1995. Those by Donald Livingson, Steven Yates, Murray N. Rothbard, Thomas DiLorenzo, and James Ostrowski are particularly important.

Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream (Chicago: Johnson, 2000)

Bennett debunks the standard view of Lincoln as "the great emancipator." He shows that Lincoln believed Blacks to be an inferior race. Consequently, they could never have equal "political" rights with White people and be given the full prerogatives of citizenship. The author presents irrefutable evidence that Lincoln wanted to have freed Blacks transported, at government expense, out of the country and relocated somewhere else.

Articles

By Thomas J. DiLorenzo:

• "The Great Centralizer: Abraham Lincoln and the War Between the States" (Fall 1998)
• "Lincoln’s Economic Legacy" (February 9, 2001)
• "Trade and the Rise of Freedom" (January 31, 2000)
• "Henry Clay: National Socialist" (The Free Market, March 1998)
• "Libertarians and the Confederate Battle Flag"
• "Birth of an Empire" (The Free Market, July 1997)

By Joe Sobran

• "Slavery in Perspective" (May 31, 2001)
• "McCarthyism and Lincolnism" (April 26, 2001)
• "The Ultimate Lincoln" (April 5, 2001)
• "Lincoln with Fangs" (February 8, 2001)
• "Slavery, No; Secession, Yes" (January 16, 2001)
• "How Tyranny Came to America"

By others

• Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., "Genesis of the Civil War" (May 11, 2000)
• Tibor R. Machan, "Rethinking the Civil War" (May 7, 2001)
• Steven Yates, "The Great Struggle: Republic or Empire" (February 3, 2000)

This article, in somewhat altered form, was published under the title "The Economic Causes of the Civil War" in the October 2001 issue of Liberty Magazine.

September 7, 2001

Donald Miller (send him mail) lives in the state of Washington with his wife and youngest son and is a cardiac surgeon in Seattle.

Copyright © 2001 LewRockwell.com

Back to LewRockwell.com Home Page

[Non-Sequitur]

There is nothing in here that hasn't been refuted time and again before. Have at it, Vinny.

[VinnyTex]

Besides you being some chicken shiiiit blue belly yankee, lets go at boy...

[Right Face]

Confederate BUMP!

[Non-Sequitur]

Oh what the hell, I'll bite. Let's pick a few at random.

After the enactment of what was called the "Tariff of Abomination" in 1828, promoted by Henry Clay, the tax on imports ranged between 20-30%. It rose further in March 1861 when Lincoln, at the start of his presidency, signed the Morrill Tariff into law. This tax was far more onerous than the one forced on the American colonies by Britain in the 18th century.

He mentions the Morrill Tariff but why not point out that it wasn't passed until after 7 states had already rebelled? How can that be a factor in their decision if it was passed after the fact? And where is the part about tariffs falling steadily during the 1850's? I suppose he left that out because it didn't fit his agenda. Lokewise I'm sure he finds this quote from Alexander Stephens, soon to be confederate vice-president inconvenient as well. In an November 14, 1860 speech Stephens said,

"In 1832, when I was in college, South Carolina was ready to nullify or secede from the Union on this account. And what have we seen? The tariff no longer distracts the public councils. Reason has triumphed. The present tariff was voted for by Massachusetts and South Carolina. The lion and the lamb lay down together-- every man in the Senate and House from Massachusetts and South Carolina, I think, voted for it, as did my honorable friend himself...Yes, and Massachusetts, with unanimity, voted with the South to lessen them, and they were made just as low as Southern men asked them to be, and those are the rates they are now at."

How can tariffs be an issue if, as Mr. Stephens pointed out, the tariff rates where what southern politicians wanted them to be at?

...Fort Sumter, site of the customs house at Charleston.

Ever been to Charleston? I was stationed there on and off - mostly on - for about 9 years. Lovely town, very historical and I'm a history buff. A lot of walking tours. One of these tours will take you past a building on, I think, East Bay Street. It is the old customs house, built in the 1770's if memory serves, and used until about 1880. Except during the unplesantness of 1861-65, of course. So with this magnificent stone building right on the waterfront where the ships come in and the duties would be collected, what sense would it make to put it on Fort Sumter? None, because Sumter was a military reservation. There never was a customs house there. Not a single dollar of customs revenue was ever collected there. The statement has no basis in fact.

BS point number 2. Charleston militia took the bait and bombarded the fort on April 12, 1861.

Here is a proclemation issued by the confederate government on February 26, 1861 stating the need for the central government to take control of the situation at Charleston. The South Carolina militia didn't bombard Sumter, the confederate army did.

BS point number 3. Lincoln coerced the South to fire the first shots when, against the initial advice of most of his cabinet, he dispatched ships carrying troops and munitions to resupply Fort Sumter...

I always love this one. It wasn't your fault, Lincoln made you bombard the fort. OK, how? By trying to put troops in there? There were already troops there, why didn't you fire earlier? If he had put 500 or 1000 or 5000 more troops into Sumter would Charleston have been in any more danger? Would he have been able to invade the south, bottled up on that little island like that? Please. The south fired because they wanted to fire, they were looking for any excuse to fire. Please be man enough to admit that.

[supercat]

I wonder how many people realize that not only was slavery once legal in Rhode Island, but the state continued to make money off the slave trade even after slavery within the state was forbidden.

[trek]

Vinny,

Your post is well researched and well thought out. There are also a number of interesting ideas in your dissertation (e.g. the improvements made in the Constitution adopted by the CSA). But your fundamental premise is tragically flawed. I refer you to the excellent writings of Publius as expressed in the Federalist Papers for a complete discussion of these matters. Pay special attention to the risks documented throughout history of overzealous belief in the virtues of factionalism. Publius makes a compelling case that history indicates that the result would be far different from the utopia of independent states you envision.

trek

P.S.

Lincoln was a tyrant. And the issues of slavery and seccession could have been handled better. But it ought to give you pause to find yourself aligned with Karl Marx on this question.

[Jeff Smith]

Besides you being some chicken shiiiit blue belly yankee, lets go at boy...

You should get banned for that you know?

[Jeff Smith]

"The American System" was not designed to enhance the North's economic strength at the expence of the South. Henry Clay simply wanted to create an American market from within. After the War of 1812, the British no longer depended on our goods. There was a depression after the war. Clay realized that the American market had to be self sufficient. He wanted the Federal Gov't to encourage Northern Industry so Southern and Western farmers would have a market to sell their goods. Internal Improvements were an essentail part of the "American System". They would link the argricultural and industrial parts of the countrty. Even Jeffersionian Republicans embraced the use of federal expenditures for such public works. In Jefferson's second inaugural address, he endorsed such a program. In 1815, Madison recommended chartering a second bank and the enactment of a protective tariff. Up until the early 1820's atleast, Willaim Lowndes and John C Calhoun pressed for the adoption of Madison's Nationalisic program.

[Non-Sequitur]

How about a few more issues with your post? The Constitution of the Confederate States of America prohibited the importation of slaves (Article I, Section 9).

So to did the federal Constitution and federal law. Article 1 Section 9 made the prohibition of the slave trade possible by 1808. The day it became lawful to do so the Congress passed legislation making it illegal. But, as we all know, that legislation was not 100% effective. In spite of government efforts to prevent it, thousands of Blacks were imported for slaves. And for the last 30 years of that trade where was the largest, most eager market for those slaves? The southern states. And who were the most eager buyers? The plantation owners. If the Federal government was unable to prevent the slave trade why should Mr. Miller think that the confederate government would be more effective? Why would southern slave traders be more inclined to obey the law just because it was in the confederate constitution? Why wouldn't the southern slave owners still want to import slaves, especially if Mr. Miller was right and their primary assets were losing value because of the prohibition? The simple fact is that Mr. Miller has absolutely no evidence that the prohibition on importing slaves would be any more effective under the confederacy as it was under the federal government.

And while on the subject of constitutions and slavery, how convenient of Mr. Miller to overlook Section 9 of the confederate constitution which said, " No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed." The confederate constitution protected slavery in a way that the federal constitution never did.

[x]

If Miller wants to call the article "A Jeffersonian View," it would help if he dealt with Jefferson at greater length. Dr. Miller seems to be very decent, educated and intelligent, but his views don't hold much water. Because the Confederacy lost, one can create any number of scenarios that their victory might have brought, and no one can disprove any of them. I could paint a much more disturbing picture of a divided America with poverty, tyranny, insecurity and oppression and not be any more or less right or wrong than Miller.

"They wrote a constitution in which each state should be free." This might look very attractive from our present situation, but one can imagine a scenario in which those "free states" were monstrously oppressive and libertarians looked towards federal authorities for relief. Replace the federal government with the states as unquestioned and absolute authorities and judges and you've simply changed the oppressor, not lifted the oppression.

Miller's view of the causes of the war, like Charles Adams's leaves out too much of what happened in the tumultuous years before the war. Taking Marx and Dickens as primary witnesses or testimonialists about the causes and nature of the war is perverse. What special knowledge of the situation in America did they have?

[Non-Sequitur]

Back again.

Every other country in the New World that had slaves, such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela, freed them in the 19th century peacefully.

The answer for this is obvious. The United States had a significant segment of the country willing to go to war to protect the institution of slavery while the other countries mentioned did not. Had the south been more willing to work out a peaceful solution then the war could have been avoided. But instead they tried to tear the country apart in defense of slavery. The fault for that lies with the southern states.

Lincoln called up an army of 75,000 men to invade the seven southern states that had seceded and force them back into the Union.

Weeks before the south fired on Sumter and before Lincoln had issued his call for troops the confederate government had passed the necessary legislation to raise an army of 100,000 men. If their intentions were peaceful then why the need for such a large body of troops. Remember, at this time there had not been a single hostile act on the part of the federal government. Not a single seizure of a federal facility had been opposed. So why did the confederate administration feel the need to raise an army 6 or 7 times the size of the federal army? Why, unless they were preparing for war?

The Confederate lyrics to the song "Battle Cry of Freedom" read..."

Fair's fair. Let's also print that line from the real "Battle Cry of Freedom."

"The Union Forever
Hurrah, boys. Hurrah
Down with the traitors
And up with the star.

I like the real version better.

So what's the matter, Vinny? No response for "chicken shiiiit blue belly yankee" like myself? I should point out that I did all my posts without calling you a single name. You would probably strangle trying that so go ahead and respond using any slurs you want to. I wouldn't expect any different from the likes of you.

[SongathuSouth]

The South is Rising Again, just as was foretold. Why do you think they call New York "The Empire State"? Do you really think there are good empires and evil empires? On the contrary, all empires are evil from the perspective of the conquered people forced to pay tribute.

Don't you know New York City is an imperial capital built from the wealth of tribute from wherever the yankee traders have sent their gunboats?

The English kept the Irish down for CENTURIES but the Irish spirit didn't die. Indeed, the Irish are more autonomous than ever and more prosperous--naturally. You Yankees haven't even had your feet on the necks of the Southerners for a century and a half and already more and more are learning the truth about the lies that have been forced on Southerners for too long.

We'll see who gets the last laugh, Northern Aggressor!

[ThJ1800]

What exactly does this have to do with Jefferson?

[southern rock]

"The Union Forever Hurrah, boys. Hurrah Down with the traitors And up with the star.

It's not exactly comforting to know that our government is a mafia - you can join, but you can't leave.

[pittsburgh gop guy]

ANDERSONVILLE!

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Wirz/anders1.htm

[FirstFlaBn]

I don't know your definition of 'thorough', but within five minutes on a search engine I found at least fifteen references to the Morrill Tariff Act of 1861, the official name for the law. Where did you look, in your underwear??

A piece of unsolicited advice. If you're going to be so smug in your self-assuredeness, and certainly before you accuse others of spreading lies, you might want to do your homework first.

[Non-Sequitur]

Yeah sure. Whatever.