The Necessary War

Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, edited by Jörg Guido Hülsmann and Stephan Kinsella.

If this perspective of the Civil War as the “modern State coming to America” is correct, then the war was not unnecessary, as Thomas DiLorenzo suggests, because the minimalist and decentralized Republic of the Founders needed to be replaced by the “rationality” of the modern State, and the war was the means to that end.

So writes Luigi Marco Bassani in his contribution to this tribute to Hans Hoppe.  This essay is to be found in Part Two, entitled “Crossroads of Thought.”  I do not intend on entering some sort of debate between DiLorenzo and Bassani; instead, I offer Bassani’s views as an alternative – and interesting – look at the purpose of the Civil War (and I will use this term for convenience).

Lincoln’s war is viewed by some as “the final nail in the coffin of the American experiment in self-government.”  Bassani recognizes this view, yet asks: was this an unintended consequence or was this, in fact, the intended purpose all along?

Bassani offers the by now well-known statement by Lincoln:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy slavery.  If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.

It is the form of the Union that Bassani addresses.  Lincoln was not merely one in a line extending from Alexander Hamilton to Danial Webster to Henry Clay:

But with the idea of the Union as an end in itself, Lincoln discovered the Trojan horse for bringing the European categories of the modern State into America.

This was Lincoln’s purpose, and it would mark the end of the idea of safeguards of the individual against the government.

Writing to Albert Hodges in April 1864, Lincoln offers two critical points: first, he views the constitution as organic law; second can best be offered by a direct quote from the letter:

Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution?

By organic law, Bassani notes that Lincoln draws “an unambiguous parallel between a human and collective body.”

In a few sentences one can find all the elements of the modern State theory of European origin, articulated by a man who may never have heard of Machiavelli, Bodin, Hobbes, but was nonetheless singing to their tune. In Lincoln’s mind, the Constitution is in fact an organic law as it is meant to protect and give form to an organic society by creating an organic State.

And given this organic society, if the “nation” was lost, there was no “constitution” – hence, Lincoln justified every violation of the constitution when prosecuting the war.  The idea of the nation had to be made organic in order to make state perpetual.

The emergence of the modern State in Europe went hand in hand with the change in the political lexicon that took place from the 1500s. The State had to be construed by jurists as an artificial person that transcended the person of the princely ruler and, ultimately, his very dynasty, guaranteeing its perpetuation.

What took Europe 300 years to accomplish was resolved in America in a few short decades:

America experienced in a few years, roughly between 1832 and 1865, a telescoped replica of what happened to Europe from 1525 to 1815.

What was this transformation?

In Europe it was the sovereign—first the King and then the assembly—who promised to free all individuals from the tyrannical as well as outmoded loyalties that were the core of liberty in the Middle Ages: church, city, corporation, family and the like. The individual had to be liberated of all previous social ties in order to become a good and free citizen.

Free the individual of all other ties and he can then become an easy mark for the title of “good citizen.”

When confronted with all these threads—Union, Nation, organic metaphors, civil religion—all leading to one single goal, the renewal of the American political community in the shape of a modern State, the historian of ideas faces one big question: “Where was it coming from?”

Bassani offers Francis Lieber as perhaps the inspiration for Lincoln’s awakening.  Lieber migrated to America in 1827, published three books on political ethics, legal and political hermeneutics, and civil liberty and self-government.  With these, he put the knife to any idea of natural law.

Alan Grimes places Lieber at the transition between “the constitutional and legal approach to an understanding of the nature of the American Union, and the rise of the organic concept of the nation.”

Conclusion

In the words of Karl Marx, the Civil War was a “world-transforming . . . revolutionary movement.”

As to Lincoln’s purpose – yes, to save the Union, but not as the Union was considered at the founding:

Lincoln’s primary object was, in fact, to eradicate the eighteenth century opposition between the individual and the State, depriving of any meaning a Constitution that was constructed on such a dichotomy.

Whether Lincoln’s intention or not, it cannot be denied that this was achieved.

BU2B, 2nd Edition

Introduction to the 2^nd Edition

This post was originally published in August, 2014.  With this new post I have added several items and have updated various links.

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All is for the best

Believe in what we’re told

Blind men in the market

Buying what we’re sold

-        Neil Peart, Rush

I was brought up to believe…

…history is a constant progression – onward and upward.

…the Dark Ages were…dark and technologically backward.

…the Middle Ages offered lawlessness and barbarity.

…the Catholic Church ruined western civilization.

…the Renaissance was a renaissance.

…King George was a tyrant.

…Americans fought for independence.

…Americans won their independence.

…the founding fathers were selfless.

…Robert Morris was America’s financier.

…government exists to protect my life and property.

…the time during the Articles of Confederation was chaotic.

Metamorphosis

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.

-        Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis

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“Nowhere was the American rejection of authority more complete than in the political sphere,” writes historian David Donald.  “The national government, moreover, was not being weakened in order to bolster state governments, for they too were decreasing in power…By the 1850’s the authority of all government in America was at a low point.”

“The war…has tended, more than any other event in the history of the country,” declaimed Republican Governor Richard Yates of Illinois in 1865, “to militate against the Jeffersonian idea, that ‘the best government is that which governs least.’  The war has not only, of necessity, given more power to, but has led to a more intimate prevision of the government over every material interest of society.”

“The civil war of ’61 has made a great gulf between what happened before it in our country and what has happened since, or what is likely to happen hereafter, [George Tucker of Harvard] mused.  “It does not seem to me as if I were living in the country in which I was born, or in which I received whatever I got of political education and principles.”

Insofar as the war was fought to preserve the Union, it was an explicit rejection of the American Revolution.

-        Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men

I have noted before the view by many – most notably (for me) from Jacques Barzun – the suicide of Western Civilization that was the Great War.  There are several events that one might point to for the suicide of the liberal idea in America; in this post I will focus on one of these – the event popularly known as the American Civil War.

Uncivilized War

At a time when warfare between and among Europeans had evolved into what could be described as civilized, the war as prosecuted by the North against the South was much the opposite; General Sherman offers a prime example:

“This was differs from European wars in this particular,” the general pointed out.  “We are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies.”

Sherman was not an aberration:

Grant himself, with President Lincoln’s hearty encouragement, had already discarded any respect for the property of southern civilians when provisioning Union soldiers.

Militarized Nation

At the end of hostilities, the Union was the mightiest military power on the planet.

While the North quickly demobilized, the resultant levels were nowhere near what they were pre-war:

…ongoing military occupation of the South required a post-war standing army that hovered around 60,000 men – four times its immediate pre-war size.

The army became a tool to enforce internal order – to say nothing of the devastation later offered to the Indians.  Restoring order during range wars, stamping out open polygamy in Utah, suppressing anti-Chinese demonstrations; most often, the central government used the army to break strikes.

The total armed forces would never fall below a level half-again higher than the level reached before Fort Sumter.

General Growth of Government

The war had dramatically altered American society and institutions.  The South, of course, would never be the same, but the transformation of the North was also profound and permanent.  The national government that emerged victorious from the conflict dwarfed in power and size the minimal Jacksonian State that had commenced the war.  The number of civilians in federal employ swelled almost fivefold.

New Majority Leader Signals Major Shift in Republic Party

After Eric Cantor’s defeat in the primary to an upstart, apparently Tea-Party type, the Republican members in the House decided to heed the lessons from such a high-profile defeat.  They selected, as new majority leader one Kevin McCarthy, from the hinterlands of California.

Do you want a hint at the shift?  Check out the picture.

Thank You, Tim Russert!

Today at LRC, the headline article is by Tom DiLorenzo, entitled “Why Neocons Are Freaking Out Over Lincoln.”  It is a worthwhile read; yet one sentence really caught my attention.  This one sentence reminded me of the kind praise I have for Mr. Russert.  From DiLorenzo:

The neocons are still punch drunk, in other words, from how the Ron Paul phenomenon, during the congressman’s two attempts at securing the Republican Party presidential nomination, captured the imaginations of millions of young people and continues to do so.

Many will remember Ron Paul’s visit to “Meet the Press” during his presidential run in 2007.  This was just after the two large money bombs, but before any primaries were held.

Russert’s purpose in this interview was the “gotcha,” throwing out statements and questions that were unquestioned in the mainstream – the various myths that prop up the American religion.  Russert’s task was obvious from his method – make it clear to so-called serious voters that Ron Paul is a flake.

Most memorable was the exchange regarding Lincoln:

MR. RUSSERT:  I was intrigued by your comments about Abe Lincoln.  "According to Paul, Abe Lincoln should never have gone to war; there were better ways of getting rid of slavery."

REP. PAUL:  Absolutely.  Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war.  No, he shouldn't have gone, gone to war.  He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic.  I mean, it was the--that iron, iron fist.

MR. RUSSERT:  We'd still have slavery.

REP. PAUL:  Oh, come on, Tim.  Slavery was phased out in every other country of the world.  And the way I'm advising that it should have been done is do like the British empire did.  You, you buy the slaves and release them.  How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans and where it lingered for 100 years?  I mean, the hatred and all that existed.  So every other major country in the world got rid of slavery without a civil war.  I mean, that doesn't sound too radical to me.  That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach.

I am certain that after the interview, Russert got one big bro hug from his fellow gatekeepers.  They felt certain they had buried the man.  There is no doubt that every effort was taken to do just this, both in 2008 and 2012.  However, instead of burying Dr. Paul, I suggest that what Russert and his cohorts did was to make him eternal.

The video of this interview was viewed hundreds of thousands of times.  My guess is that 1% of these views were by Oligarchic, Loudmouth, Despicable Friends and Acquaintances of Russert, Tim (OLD FARTS).  The remaining 99% of these views were by young people and others who either supported or at least were open to Ron Paul and his message.

What do you think that 99% did?  Probably many of them first said to themselves “the Lincoln that Ron Paul describes isn’t the one that I know.  I wasn’t taught this in school.”  After some reflection, and considering that many of the odd things Ron Paul said certainly held truth when examined, they then thought, “Maybe I will look into this.”

So they did.  They found books by DiLorenzo: “The Real Lincoln” and “Lincoln Unmasked.”  After reading these, they concluded that maybe Ron was onto something, and the Old Farts were lying to them.  “If they are lying about Lincoln, what else are they lying about?”

For many, this interview with Russert likely caused a desire to explore other deceptions and myths behind the American religion.  More from DiLorenzo’s article at LRC:

In his essay on "The Nature of the State" Murray Rothbard pointed out that all states, no matter how tyrannical they may be, rely crucially on inculcating in the minds of the public the alleged grandiosity of the state and the alleged failures of private enterprise and the civil society.

Such propaganda is essential to statism, said Rothbard, because it is essentially an economical way to get the public to acquiesce in being enslaved by the state.

The neocons are becoming unglued and freaked out because they no longer control the culture of ideas among "conservatives"…

I can thank Russert because he certainly helped to contribute to this loss of faith.  Had he not tried his “gotcha” approach with Ron Paul, it is likely that many of the 99% would have never looked into the Lincoln myth, and thus might not have found reason to begin to question the myriad of other myths. 

The myths, as Rothbard suggests, provide economical leverage for those who would control us.  Russert, so caught up in the mainstream, had no idea what he helped to unleash – and leverage, after all, works both ways.

A prerequisite for the final collapse of the Soviet Union was the widespread disbelief in all the lies, myths and superstitions about socialism that the people of the Soviet empire had been brainwashed into accepting.

I am sure the interview was uncomfortable for Dr. Paul, despite the man being more courageous than all other members of political office combined.  Yet, just like the Rudy Giuliani moment, in the most uncomfortable of situations, Dr. Paul likely prompted many people to say to themselves “I will look into that.”

I still look back fondly on that Tim Russert moment.  He certainly helped to bring on the destruction of one of the most valuable myths supporting the American religion.

Louisiana is Stuck

The White House has responded to the petition asking to allow the peaceful withdrawal of the State of Louisiana from the Union.

Jon Carson, Director of the Office of Public Engagement, responded.  Guess what the answer is?  I will wait…still waiting….  Have you guessed?

No.  The answer is no.

Our founding fathers established the Constitution of the United States "in order to form a more perfect union" through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government.

But what if “self” doesn’t agree with this “government”?  Sorry, Charlie.  You don’t get a “get out of jail free” card:

But they did not provide a right to walk away from it.

I didn’t realize that this was a right that was the founders’ to grant.

He then follows with what could be construed as a veiled threat:

…more than 600,000 Americans died in a long and bloody civil war that vindicated the principle that the Constitution establishes a permanent union between the States.

Of course, this only vindicated the principle that might makes right, and history is written by the victors.

And shortly after the Civil War ended, the Supreme Court confirmed that "[t]he Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States."

Proving the wisdom in the separation of powers.

So there you have it. 

But the best part was found in the section immediately below Mr. Carson’s response.  I have no idea if it will be there now, if you check the link – I don’t know if this is a rotating list.  Immediately below the response is a list of other related petitions.  The first one, a petition to:

Deport everyone that signed a petition to withdraw their state from the United States of America.

I imagine there would be many takers.

h/t Charles Burris

The Legends Supporting the American Religion

Religion and Legend

Religion (noun)

1. A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

In this article, I intend to explore the legends underlying the American religion.  By American religion, I mean to suggest the belief by a large segment of the population in the structures and institutions of government, and the belief that these structures and institutions are used for purposes beneficial to the people.  In other words, the religion is belief in the benevolence of the state and the goodness of the political leaders.

Legend (noun)

1. A non-historical or unverifiable story handed down by tradition from earlier times and popularly accepted as historical.

2. The body of stories of this kind, especially as they relate to a particular people, group, or clan….

There are several American legends that either support this religious belief directly, or otherwise contribute to the deification of the state and those who act through it.  Such legends, taught in the public schools and perpetuated through various mainstream media outlets – movies, books, and magazines, as well as mainstream web-sites – create a common foundation as the basis for the desired religious belief: belief in the state.

Legends are material to be moulded, and not facts to be recorded.

Hervey Allen

Many have done valuable to work toward the shattering of one or more of the key legends, thereby contributing to the loss of faith in the religion.  These efforts can only be beneficial to freedom.  The work of shattering these legends is the work of revisionist historians, although not all revisionists support the idea of shattering the religion of state.  Such historians have toiled tirelessly from the inception of each legend, yet many worked in relative obscurity.  Certainly the internet has made their work easily available to any who care to look.

Legends die hard. They survive as truth rarely does.

Helen Hayes

There are many such legends in American history.  I will explore three of these, and suggest that these three may be the most foundational due to the magnitude of awareness in and acceptance by the population at large – most importantly, due to the importance of these legends to the foundation of the American religion.  Proximity in time, I suggest, is not the key criteria – one event occurred 150 years ago, while the most recent is only ten years old.  But what these three cases hold in common is the level to which the legends have been internalized by large portions of the population.

Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts.

Salman Rushdie

A major impediment to shattering the legends is that such action runs full-force into a brick wall of “we the people.”  Too many accept the idea that “they” are the government; that the people are in charge; that the government and the country are the same; that I vote, so I have control.  As opposed to control through dictators and kings (where the self-interest of the rulers at the expense of the people was never in question), representative democracy has done a wonderful job of convincing the people that they are the rulers, choosing politicians to work on their behalf for their good.

Because they have been taught to believe that they and the government are one-and-the-same, they cannot accept that the legends are not only false but shed light on the murderous actions of government.  They cannot damn themselves.  Additionally, they cannot accept that the legends are false, because to do so will suggest that they have been dupes.

When the legends die, the dreams end; there is no more greatness.

Tecumseh

I do not intend to refute each legend in detail in this post – I am not qualified to do so, even if I chose to.  My purpose is to suggest the three that I view as the more important legends to burst, specifically because they are so deeply ingrained and hold significant sway as basis for the religion.

Creating Enemies and Maintaining Control

I have written fairly extensively regarding US policy up to and during World War II.  These writings include reviews of books regarding Pearl Harbor, the decision to use the atomic bomb, and most thoroughly several posts regarding Herbert Hoover’s book, Freedom Betrayed.

I am currently reading further on the subject, and expect to write more on this as well.  However, two views come to mind:

1)      I have commented before, yet my feeling only grows the more I read, that the objective of the United States Government in entering the Second World War was to ensure victory for Communism and Communist Russia.  By doing so, an enemy – both militarily capable and ideologically incompatible – would be available to ensure further aggrandizement of the state over an indefinite period of time (as the communists fell, a role now played by the war on terror).

2)      It was necessary that the United States enter the wars of the first half of the 20^th century and assume this position of global power in order that the elites who sit above national politics had a continuing vehicle through which to lever control.  Great Britain in many ways historically served this purpose, but was by this time almost bled dry – and in any case could never offer the possibilities of wealth confiscation and international control that the United States could offer(how much lessor if Lincoln had lost the war).  The people of the United States had strong feelings of leaving Europe’s wars to Europe.  This feeling was eroded over time, and came crashing down on December 7. 

There is a danger that these views will cloud my further readings on this subject – that I will look only for confirmatory statements.  This is a risk – yet I am finding no other way to explain rationally the actions of both the United States and British governments. 

If it looks like a duck….