Correcting Ron Paul: Buying the Southern Slaves Was Not an Option
Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, April 1, 2010, 5:42 AM
President Abraham Lincoln at the Antietam battlefield (Opinion Forum)
Ron Paul insisted in a recent interview that Abe Lincoln could have avoided the Civil War by buying the southern slaves from the southerners. Paul argues that Lincoln (a warmonger) was “determined to fight this civil war” that he could have avoided “for 1/100 the cost.”
Right Wing News reported, via HotAir:
QUESTION: Getting down to the last two questions here…. Most people consider Abe Lincoln to be one of our greatest presidents, if not the greatest president we’ve ever had. Would you agree with that sentiment and why or why not?
RON PAUL: No, I don’t think he was one of our greatest presidents. I mean, he was determined to fight a bloody civil war, which many have argued could have been avoided. For 1/100 the cost of the war, plus 600 thousand lives, enough money would have been available to buy up all the slaves and free them. So, I don’t see that is a good part of our history. Besides, the Civil War was to prove that we had a very, very strong centralized federal government and that’s what it did. It rejected the notion that states were a sovereign nation.
The people who disagree want to turn around and say, “Oh, yes, those guys just wanted to protect slavery.” But that’s just a cop-out if you look at this whole idea of what happened in our country because Lincoln really believed in the centralized state. He was a Hamiltonian type and objected to everything Jefferson wanted.
Of course, this is ridiculous on many levels. For one, hindsight is 20/20. No one knew going into the war what it would mean to this country– that 600,000 Americans would lose their lives, that the South would be devastated.
And, buying out the slave owners was not an option.
According to EH.net:
With so much to lose on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, economic logic suggests that a peaceful solution to the slave issue would have made far more sense than a bloody war. Yet no solution emerged. One “economic” solution to the slave problem would be for those who objected to slavery to “buy out” the economic interest of Southern slaveholders. Under such a scheme, the federal government would purchase slaves. A major problem here was that the costs of such a scheme would have been enormous. Claudia Goldin estimates that the cost of having the government buy all the slaves in the United States in 1860, would be about $2.7 billion (1973: 85, Table 1). Obviously, such a large sum could not be paid all at once. Yet even if the payments were spread over 25 years, the annual costs of such a scheme would involve a tripling of federal government outlays (Ransom and Sutch 1990: 39-42)! The costs could be reduced substantially if instead of freeing all the slaves at once, children were left in bondage until the age of 18 or 21 (Goldin 1973:85). Yet there would remain the problem of how even those reduced costs could be distributed among various groups in the population. The cost of any “compensated” emancipation scheme was so high that even those who wished to eliminate slavery were unwilling to pay for a “buyout” of those who owned slaves.
Also, the estimated economic cost of the Civil War was $6.6 billion. Buying the slaves would have cost at least $2.7 billion. It was more than 1/3 the total cost of the war, not 1/100th. This was not an option economically at the time.
And, who is to say that the South would accept such an offer?… And, who is to say that the southern democrats would abide by such an agreement?
One more thing– Seven southern states seceded before Lincoln even took office.
For Ron Paul to suggest that Abraham Lincoln was some kind of warmonger who could have bought off the South, is not just inaccurate and a little crazy, it’s offensive.
UPDATE: Leah V. added this:
As a graduate student specializing in Civil War history, I know that Lincoln expanded federal powers at the expense of states’ and some individual rights. But I have always believed that his measures were appropriate for the times. I realize Obama and his cronies could make the same argument today. Nevertheless, I find problematic the notion that the federal government should have respected the southern states’ right to hold slaves. To me it is morally akin to the federal government respecting a woman’s right to kill her unborn children.
Like you, I find Ron Paul’s argument faulty. As slavery was an integral part of southern economy and culture, I sincerely doubt that southerners would have been interested in selling their slaves to the federal government, and I am skeptical that they would have ever abandoned slavery without the coercion of war. (There are, however, several historians who disagree with me and say that slavery would have died out on its own anyway.)
To tell you the truth, I believe the Civil War was a divine judgment on the entire nation for its complicity with slavery. It makes me shudder to think of what God has prepared to punish us for tolerating abortion.
And, Bruce added this:
Lincoln / Congress did buy all the slaves residing in the District of Columbia.
This is not a widely known action taken by the Federal government and it may have some bearing on your discussion.
Thanks for your time,
Bruce
NCps – I have always thought that this would be a good legal precedent for those of us who are descendents of slave owners to use in a friend of the court brief if and when the civil rights groups try to extort reparations for former slaves.
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Published May 24, 2012 at 8:46 pm - 80 Comments
Zipity commented:
In his defense, Ron Paul is a f***ing loon….
Coffee Bean commented:
There is also the fact that the southerners would have had to have been willing to sell their slaves! That line of logic is assinine!
Zipity commented:
In his defense, Ron Paul is certifiably insane….
Peggy commented:
FYI: It’s “seceded” not “succeeded”.
Rob Crawford commented:
The fact that secession started before Lincoln’s term should — *SHOULD* — shut up the idiots who blame him.
It won’t, of course, but it should.
MOORE BUFFETS commented:
Dr. Walter Williams on “The Real Lincoln” -
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/w-williams1.html
All you have to do is read what Lincoln himself, said about slavery.
StanInTexas commented:
This entire argument about buying the slaves to avoid the Civil War presupposed that the Civil War was ONLY about slavery.
The Southern States that left the Union had more issues than slavery on their mind.
newton commented:
Why do they keep electing him in his district in spite of being so darned loony concerns me…
Dell commented:
Thanks for an outstanding post, Jim. This really needed to be said.
It’s also one more nail in Ron Paul’s political coffin.
rumcrook commented:
none of that is surprising coming from certifiable loon ronpaul
Indoctrinate U commented:
“Lincoln Unmasked” by Thomas DiLorenzo
http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods58.html
I am not a member of the “Church of Lincoln”
anon commented:
The Southerners would probably a) not agree or b) just buy more slaves from other countries once the ones in the South were freed
I do agree with Ron Paul, however, that the Civil War was the point at which power was shifted to a centralized federal government. But I’m not sure how that could’ve been avoided without splitting the US, which still means slavery would exist within the South.
Ron Paul has some decent things to say, he just distorts them with his 98% certifiable lunacy.
Rob Crawford commented:
“I am not a member of the “Church of Lincoln””
But are a member of the Loon Rockwell fan club. Which is disqualifying, IMHO.
kansas commented:
I guess when Obama foments the next civil war because he wants to be like Lincoln, we’ll see how great that is.
kansas commented:
“Lincoln Unmasked” by Thomas DiLorenzo
You can buy that at Borders and Lew Rockwell has nothing to do with that.
Pedro commented:
Of course, if the southerners did all decide to sell their existing slaves to the North, it would have caused a run-up in the price of each existing slave.
Then the southern slave owners would be able to replenish their stock with lower-cost imports from Africa, and pocket the difference (an 1800′s slave arbitrage, if you will).
Its unnerving that our current politicians are so engrossed with their ability to throw huge sums of money around in order to “solve problems” that they view transformational events in our history as merely “choices of the treasury”.
Mark commented:
Ron Paul is a loon. Does anyone take this crank seriously?
MANHATTAN DECLARATION commented:
Search “DiLorenzo Lincoln” on youtube. Plenty of videos, including a Q&A with Brian Lamb on C-SPAN.
Britny commented:
Creating a demand for slaves doesn’t strike me as a way of eliminating slavery but then again what do I know, I’m not a Congressman.
Mr. Paul, return your (R), you don’t know what to do with it.
so cal chick commented:
Historic illiteracy at its worst…
For anyone who has studied the Civil War without politically correct revisionist blinders on – they would also know that in fact, there were a number of ‘Sothrons’ who despised slavery yet fought for the south in defense of State Sovereignty against the power of the Federal Govt.
PJ commented:
Well yeah, they would just bring in more slaves from Africa after they sold the ones they had! And be richer for it.
Sort of like gun buy-back schemes, when the criminals just go out and buy bigger ones after they sell their stuff back to the police.
czekmark commented:
The real issue is the Federal governments inability to accept that the southern states had the legal right to secede, a topic that is still being debated. The so-called civil war had little to do with slavery and everything to do with forcibly maintaining the boundaries of the country.
pjean commented:
The most miserable example of an “armchair quarterback”,
Josh commented:
I read GP daily, and typically love all your posts.. You do a really great job, however…
I have several bones to pick with this article.
“Also, the estimated economic cost of the Civil War was $6.6 billion. Buying the slaves would have cost at least $2.7 billion. It was more than 1/3 the total cost of the war, not 1/100th. This was not an option economically at the time.” –> It’s still a cheaper solution, and wouldn’t have totally destroyed the southern state’s entire economic infrastructure!
“And, who is to say that the South would accept such an offer?… And, who is to say that the southern democrats would abide by such an agreement?” –> Imminent domain?
Regardless, the states’ would probably have agreed to such terms instead of simply depraving them of their property. At least give it a shot.
“One more thing– Seven southern states succeeded before Lincoln even took office.” –> I think the term that was meant here was “seceded”. The only reason the states seceded was because they knew Lincoln’s plan… Had he made a better effort to appease the southern states, then we may have been able to avoid the civil war altogether.
Nathan R. Jessup commented:
Anyone seen this VIDEO of Hank Johnson? Amazing. Hilarious.
He fears the island of Guam might tip over if too many people go…
http://the-raw-deal.com/2010/04/01/hank-johnson-fears-guam-will-tip-over-literally/
Nathan R. Jessup
http://www.the-raw-deal.com
VaGal commented:
The real issue of slavery was its advancement in the Western Territories. This was a concern even before Lincoln. Besides the moral implications there was an economic one. The Southern settlers had an advantage over most Northern settlers because they brought their slaves and were able to work larger parcels of land. Slavery was expected to eventually die out in the South, but the need for cheap labor in the West would increase the use of slaves and further entrench the practice in our culture. (Source: Pamplin National Civil War Historical Park in VA) Others here have already pointed out that the Civil War was fought on more than slavery. IOW, Mr. Paul is rather ignorant of our history.
kansas commented:
Lincoln did not issue the emancipation proclamation until 1863, 2 years into the war, and then it was used as a war tactic. Upon his inauguration he could have issued it, and allowed then provided safe passage to slaves to move to free states.
olm commented:
Oh, look, Ron Paul is using revisionist history to further himself. I’m shocked.
/sarc (like I need it)
Matt commented:
@Josh Good points, I agree. I’m an avid reader of GP, but this post is off base. I suggest you read “The Real Lincoln” as a good starting point. Lincoln was not the man people worship him to be, and while Paul makes inaccurate statements, I think it’s healthy to treat Lincoln’s sainthood and his actions with extreme skepticism.
Several things were in motion as he took office, so I understand that just like the Obama administration there was more going on than the man himself – and the state rights movement was struck a fatal blow.
Paul’s assertion that slavery in most of the world did not need violent civil wars (save I think 2 countries in central/south america if I remember correctly) is an important clue that the war was primarily about federal control, presidential power, and putting the states in their place.
bg commented:
++
(just a sample)
When Europeans Were Slaves
Muhammedan Slave Trade
(^still exists today^)
The Enslavement of Whites
Time of the Lincolns
The Civil War
The Reconstruction
The Racist History of the Democratic Party
Black Slave Owners
The Truth May Inconvenience Our Perceptions
==
Pat the First commented:
Studying Abraham Lincoln has been kind of a life passion for me. I was born on his birthday so it sent me on my lifetime study.
Ron Paul needs to just shut up. I never liked him. Now, I like him less.
Scott Jerome commented:
Anyone who supports Ron Paul, supported Ron Paul or subscribes to his ideas ought to be ashamed.
The man is a damned fool and anyone who follows him is weak.
John Steele commented:
Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution of the Confederate States prohibited the importation of slaves from other countries:
Teddy's SEARCH+RESCUE commented:
This is Great! Q&A (2) C-SPAN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCrOzOoQ17A&feature=related
DiLorenzo nails Abe, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Newtered, all in less than 9 minutes!
Scott J commented:
I love this site but never commented but this time I disagree with you. I dont really like Ron Paul but you are taking him out of context. The quote wasn’t that he had the option but that comparatively that money added up to the amount that he could of bought all the slaves. Not that it was an option. Ron Paul is right in his argument. I dont get the love affair with Lincoln, either. He basically was the first president to throw federalism out the window.
Slavery was wrong, but bullying the south into the Norths world view was wrong. The destruction of the south in fighting the war is beyond forgiveness by many southerners.
We as conservatives are up in arms about the violations of states rights through mandates by Obama but hold Lincoln up as a great president who stole states rights as well seems a bit odd.
bg commented:
++
Emancipation Proclamation
[View a photograph copy of President Abraham Lincoln's draft of the final Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863. The original was destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1871.
Issued January 1, 1863
Whereas on the 22nd day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, towit:
"That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof
shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.]
==
John Steele commented:
Slavery had so little to do with the War Between the States as to be almost laughable. The issues were predominantly trade related and states rights vs the federal government. As noted by others, seven states had issued declarations of secession before Lincoln was even elected and his interest in freeing slaves came two years into the war as a cynical ploy to try to stir up rebellion among blacks in the South in hope of creating internal problems.
The Confederacy was doomed but not because of the overwhelming force of arms brought to bear by the North. An examination of the military history would show that the North’s military efforts bordered on incompetent until the near very end of the war when the South was already spent.
Dave commented:
“The Southern States that left the Union had more issues than slavery on their mind.”
If you actually read the letter of secession, you’ll find one recurring theme. Guess what theme that is. Hint, it isn’t “more issues”.
bg commented:
++
re: bg #30 link:
[History reveals that the Republican Party was formed in 1854 to abolish slavery and challenge other racist legislative acts initiated by the Democratic Party.
Some called it the Civil War, others called it the War Between the States, but to the African Americans at that time, it was the War Between the Democrats and the Republicans over slavery. The Democrats gave their lives to expand it, Republican gave their lives to ban it.
During the Senate debates on the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, it was revealed that members of the Democratic Party formed many terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to murder and intimidate African Americans voters. The Ku Klux Klan Act was a bill introduced by a Republican Congress to stop Klan Activities. Senate debates revealed that the Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party.
History reveals that Democrats lynched, burned, mutilated and murdered thousands of blacks and completely destroyed entire towns and communities occupied by middle class Blacks, including Rosewood, Florida, the Greenwood District in Tulsa Oklahoma, and Wilmington, North Carolina to name a few.]
much more @ link..
==
BurmaShave commented:
“For Ron Paul to suggest that Abraham Lincoln was some kind of warmonger who could have bought off the South, is not just inaccurate and a little crazy, it’s offensive.” …in other words, vintage Ron Paul.
Joanne commented:
What, just throw some money around, and everything is all better. Paul sounds like Obama, and how is this working for him? Spending money has never been the solution for anything.
Scott commented:
I have a hard time saying a man who was president when 600,000 Americans killed each other in war, who suspended the writ of habeous corpus, and who presided over the destruction of the concept of Jeffersonian federalism in favor of an overarching central government, was one of the greatest president’s ever.
Ron Paul was right about Lincoln, but I don’t completely agree with his rationale.
Don Abernathy commented:
Yep Just disregard the constitution. The ends justifies the means….
My copy of the constitution requires just compensation be paid when you take another man’s property.
So how can ya Byatch today when they toss aside the constitution again and force ya to buy their Fat Cat Friends Insurance Policy.
They don’t even leave you the illusion of freedom anymore.
Welcome to the nightmare… Comrade
roflmmfao
Pat the First commented:
Abraham Lincoln was not above making hard decisions which affected our entire country. He was smart enough to spend hours on his knees praying for guidance (unlike the present occupier of the WH who would rather party than even work let alone pray). Whether some like it or not, most historians will say he saved the country.
The problem that has never been faced for those who defend the South was that their economics was unsustainable. They were on the brink of failure because the manufacturing was all done in the North. The North was much stronger than the South.
The Civil War is more complex than is taught or even accepted by those who make a casual study of the war.
Just one piece of info . . . more US citizens were killed during the Civil War than the entire deaths of WWI, WWII, Korean War, Viet Nam War and both Iraq and Afghan Wars. It was bloody. Yet, out of it came most of the largest improvements to battlefield medicine than has even been made.
FPK commented:
Lincoln was no saint as too many of us have been taught in school. While Ron Paul is nuts, the facts are that Lincoln did NOT have to start a war because 7 States had (on sound constitutional basis) left the Union. The facts are that Virginia and other upper South States (including my home State of Missouri) had voted not to leave the Union. It was not until Lincoln sought to uphold our voluntary Union like an Empire and send a federal Army south to enforce his will that other State’s followed suit.
Big Mo commented:
I’ve done some serious research into the 19th century presidencies, and I can tell you for certain that DiLorenzo is way off base, as are beliefs that Lincoln was the begining of big government and issued the proclamation as a mere wartime tactic.
For the record: Slavery WAS the cause of the Civil War. Why? Because every economic, political and social decision or movement from before the Mexican War until 1861 was wrapped around slavery. The violent dispute centered on the economics of slavery, the social aspects of slavery, the politics of slavery, the morality of slavery, the racism behind American slavery and the laws of slavery. To what degree depends on who you were and where you were from. To deny this or claim that the war was merely a political war or economics dispute is to deny history and to refute the men and women who actually fought it.
Since the founding fathers ultimately punted on the issue of human slavery, the new nation gravitated to forming two distinct sections: The North and the South. The North as a whole identified with industry, commercialism, trade, democratic republicanism but with a stronger central government, white supremacy and westward expansion. In certain sections, Northerners also identified with anti-slavery. The South as a whole identified with state control and a weaker central government, an agrarian-based economy with an elite class of planters and politicians, white supremacy and chattel slavery. In some sections, Southerners also identified with country over state, and bore hostility toward the elites.
At the core was slavery. Starting with the Missouri Compromise in 1820 all the way through the secession crisis of 1860-1861, slavery dominated politics, foreign policy and trade, economics and westward expansion. Slavery increasingly became a moral issue, but morality was not a Northern majority view until mid-way through the war. White supremacy started falling as anti-slavery sentiment rose. In the South, the morality and ethics of slavery ranged from uncertain to rock-solid, but the supremacy of whites was never in doubt, even among the numerically superior (but largely powerless) poor whites.
By the time of the secession crisis, sectional differences had become irreconcilable, as both sides claimed constitutional – and in some cases, Biblical – authority for their causes.
If you’re truly interested, wander over to my old site at the link below. Start with the presidency of John Tyler and read through my essay on Lincoln. You’ll realize that what I say is right about slavery, the war and Lincoln, and that Ron Paul is full of it.
http://thepresidentsatbigmo.blogspot.com/2007/06/number-10-john-tyler.html
bg commented:
++
Pat the First @ 10:09 am #44
re: [The Civil War is more complex than is taught or even
accepted by those who make a casual study of the war.]
so true..
as if a ‘quote’ here or there w/out context added & someones opinion of it explains everything in a nutshell.. well, what do i know, maybe for nuts it does.
==
Andreas K. commented:
I would call Ron Paul a loon, but that’s not fitting. He’s a moron.
I consider the proclamation a war time tactic. Why?
It’s pretty obvious. Lincoln issued the proclamation in early 1863. Until then the Confederate Army under Lee had kicked the Union in the balls in almost every engagement. The enlistement papers of thousands of soldiers were running out in the North as well. Lincoln needed soldiers and he needed them badly. That’s why he did the proclamation.
Yes, slavery was an issue, but I believe it went far beyond that. The question remains, can the central government tell everybody how they are supposed to live? Most of the men fighting in the Confederate Army didn’t even own slaves. Lee was neither a friend of slavery nor was he a friend of the secession. He fought because Virginia joined the secession movement. I seriously doubt that for Lee slavery was the reason for war, as for most other people.
Many Union soldiers didn’t give a damn about slavery either. I would go so far and say most of them didn’t care.
It’s easy to judge in hindsight.
Auntie Em commented:
As a Southerner with deep family roots in the Civil War, including handwritten accounts that were not burned, I will say that what Lincoln did was atrocious. A very little uttered fact is that the North also had slaves.
They did not have to burn the land to cripple the South. They killed and ravaged people in the South, forced them out of their homes, took their belongings, and meant to inflict economic hardship.
The Civil War has been painted as a war to free slaves, but that was not it. The federal govt. was scared of losing the wealth of the south. That is why it was necessary to burn it down. It was wholly unAmerican, and I will never count Abraham Lincoln as a great president. He hurt too many people, and today if we fought a war like the North fought the South, all of our soldiers would be in military prison.
Matt commented:
Kind of bummed about the personal attacks and lowering of standards here. We have an opportunity to discuss Lincoln’s legacy and debate various opinions of incredibly important historical events… I think we can do so without name calling. Thanks to all providing links and thoughtful arguments from both sides.
bg commented:
++
Big Mo @ 10:16 am #46
nice job!! thumbsup
(btw the Bush speech went poof..
)
==
wanumba commented:
Appeasement never buys peace, just prolongs the agony and strife.
The idea of buying up slaves as an option shows a fundamental ignorance about human nature.
Who needs to go back in time to prove this naive idiocy? Go to Sudan. During the Civil War, the North was enslaving Southerners – truly the “War of Northern Aggression.”
Christian missionaries actually began an emergency measure to buy off slaves and return them to their homes. It worked at first, but then the Northerners began a racket of reselling slaves to missionaires, who began to see that this was creating an unintended consequence, and ended the purchasing. AND the overwhelming numbers – hundreds of thousands of slaves, two million killed, four million displaced Southern Sudanese.
The Southern Sudanese settling old differences amongst the various tribal groups and uniting to beat the crap out of the Northerners was the SOLUTION to end the Northerners’ ability to kill their people, to end their ability to enslave their people, to end their ability to strip their land of resources, leaving nothing for the Southern Sudanese people, and FORCE the Northerners to the peace treaty table was the solution, not appeasement, not buying back …WINNING the WAR was the ANSWER.
FIGHTING with real guns and tanks and soldiers got the South the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Talk, didn’t, buying up people didn’t, sanctions didn’t, appeasing the North didn’t. The Northerners, frustrated by their loss in Southern Sudan proved their quality by turning to beating up Western Sudan … Darfur.
People who intone that other means were just not explored are people who sit in controlled, tidy classrooms and offices, totally oblivious to their peaceful lives being secured by the centuries of efforts of our military, not by lofty pie in the sky drivelly pontifications.
czekmark commented:
“Whether some like it or not, most historians will say he saved the country.”
He saved it by destroying part of it. He effectively destroyed the south; interesting way of saving the country, eh?
Danny Green commented:
Sorry, but in this case the blog is as wrong as wrong gets.
First if you believe the civil war was fought over slavery, you need a damn history lesson. South Carolina made a bunch of noise about slavery at the outset but if you believe that the common men who fought the war brother against brother did so for the benefit of the elitist slave owners, you’re stupid. These people were fighting for their constitutional rights and their homes. The slave owners didn’t fight the war, it was the common working men who volunteered to fight.
Secondly, to my knowledge Lincoln made ZERO effort to avoid the war or bring it to a peaceful settlement. When he sent Sheridan through the Shenandoah valley scorching earth, looting, killing people and raping women that showed ultimately what kind of man Lincoln was.
The main stream media and history books don’t promote the facts but it is common historic knowledge that Lincoln was possible insane as Hitler. He was definetly mentally ill, he suffered from bad depression all his life and he was a womanizer.
Pat the First commented:
czekmark
April 1st, 2010 | 11:01 am | #53
That is not what history says. The South was on a path to destroying itself. Like it or not, Lincoln took very hard steps to save our country. States were already seceding before President Lincoln was inaugurated.
If you really want to learn about the slavery issue and its destruction, read the story of Wilberforce in England. Slavery was a one way trip to destruction.
Dave Thul commented:
I just finished a course in African American history to 1870, and this topic was addressed.
The numbers cited, 2.7 billion, were in reality even more than that because only one half of the states would have been paying. The Southern states certainly wouldn’t have approved a federal tax that everyone paid in order to buy the slaves-they would be in effect paying the money to themselves. So only the Northern states, or possibly even just private groups in the North would have had to raise the money, something they couldn’t possibly do.
Not to mention the whole idea that Lincoln fought the war to end slavery is simply not true.
czekmark commented:
Pat, so you say the Lincoln save the south from itself? By destroying its infrastructure and burning its land? How noble a gesture. /sarc
Tim commented:
You guys need to learn your history. Before South Carolina seceded, the South was very wealthy while the North was not. The government tried all kinds of different strategies to “spread the wealth” of the South, from higher tariffs on Southern states to, yes, outlawing slavery. The latter stuck because it was a matter that hit the hearts and minds of the Northern people. Nevermind the fact that there were slaves in the North as well (not to mention the immigrants that were literally worked to death in the factories). Slavery, disgusting as it was, WAS protected by the constitution at the time and Northern politicians knew this but also knew that, without slaves, the South would not be able to survive economically without the help of the U.S. government. South Carolina took the bait and others soon followed. It wasn’t until 1862 (after nearly two years of being hammered by the South and being on the cusp of losing the war, not to mention Northern Democrats calling to end the war) that Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation (which was unconstitutional by the way, as it still allowed slave-holding border states to keep slaves). It was a political tool that he used to help boost the Northern public’s support for continuing to fight a losing war. Lincoln was not a great president, he was a great politician.
bg commented:
++
wanumba @ 10:59 am #52
horrific, absolutely atrocious, and here we are arguing over someones opinion of an occurrence that took place over a century
gone by that won’t change a dag-nab blessed thing one iota..
and yet we don’t believe there are people ready & eager to chop our heads
off & enslave the masses, due to beliefs stretching back to the 7th century,
that are held as strong, if not stronger today as they were held back then..
like what goes on over there can never happen here, ignoring the fact that we have a president who is helping THEM to bring it on US in the WH..
much more here..
==
Corky Boyd commented:
The problem with the slave buyout myth is the South’s agricultural economy, it was felt, just couldn’t survive without slaves. No amount of money could convince plantation owners to their give up their livlihood and sell their slaves. Indeed the price would have increased vastly, well beyond the prevailing price.
In reality after the civil war, the South found it could develop an industrialized base. Steelmaking was established during the war and a textile industry blossomed after the war. The cotton industry, they discovered could still thrive with paid workers.
For Tim:
Despite the fact the Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t signed until 1864, the war WAS all about slavery. It was couched in “states rights” rhetoric by southerners, but the one states right they wanted to protect was the right to own slaves.
wanumba commented:
czekmark
April 1st, 2010 | 11:21 am | #57
Pat, so you say the Lincoln save the south from itself? By destroying its infrastructure and burning its land? How noble a gesture. /sarc
…….
It’s in Sherman’s accounts that the reason he stomped thru the South the way he did was to destroy its ability to fight. He deliberately wrecked in a manner so that the South would have to redirect ALL resources to survival. So, yes, it was meant to be harsh.
It’s standard military tactic to make sure the loser can’t turn around too fast and restart the war.
HOWEVER, Sherman did not do like the Mongol Sack of Baghdad in 1254, during which Ghengis Khan’s grandson slaughtered up to a million people in and around the city and demolished most of the place, setting the land of today’s Iraq back literally a thousand years. Unlike the typical scenario in history through thousands of years, the losing Southerners were not slaughtered with salt cast on their fields, and it has not taken a thousand years to restore the land, the cities and the wealth. Southerners have gone on to great achievement and national leadership in politics and in war.
People need to put American actions into historical perspective.
Joe commented:
The only thing stranger than Ron Paul are his marry band of cult followers. The man is certifiably insane.
wanumba commented:
bg
………….
History is in the making:
Up this month, Sudan’s national elections. And next year: 2011, Southern Sudan votes in Referendum to determine they stay as autonomous part of Sudan or go independent as a new nation.
Southern Sudan is the only place where they have a LEGAL international agreement to split off and go independent.
A right achieved by WINNING THE WAR against brutal agression, not by talk.
Saint commented:
Your math, about the cost of paying for the slaves instead of fighting a war, is a bit simple.
Not only did the world find other alternatives to American cotton, diminishing economic solvency in the long run, but each person who died in the war, or was unable to function because of it, is also an economic loss, as is the price of reconstruction.
And for the record, ANYONE who says they know the definite reason the war was fought, and know for certain what Lincoln and the North/South wanted out of it is full of crap. Hundreds of books, all with extensive research performed, have been written on the subject. They do not agree on the cause, and have evidence to support their own position “without a doubt”.
If you said the cause of the war was ” it was just kind of an accident, and Americans just have a habit of fighting to win, no matter the cost.” you would be no less right or wrong than any of those books.
VIVA LA RAZA!! commented:
About 5 years ago, Walter Williams was filling in for Rush and interviewed DiLorenzo about his book “The Real Lincoln” – of course the book then shot up to the top 5 on Amazon.
Anyway, they both agreed, that Lincoln’s Presidency was the beginning of the end of Federalism.
Therefore, it was wholly appropriate, for BHO to kick-off his campaign in Springfield. Illinois with a grand speech, invoking Lincoln.
In hindsight, Obama’s speech should have been titled – “USA: THE FINAL CHAPTER”
bg commented:
++
Saint @ 12:45 pm #64
re: [If you said the cause of the war was ” it was just kind of an accident, and Americans just have a habit of fighting to win, no matter the cost.”
you would be no less right or wrong than any of those books.]
how absurd..
and nice try, but anti-US/American
propaganda doesn’t wash in here..
==
JB in GA commented:
Before the war Lincoln favored gradual, compensated emancipation. Even at the end of the war he was trying to persuade Congress to provide $400 million to southern state legislatures for open-ended use (i.e., including compensation for slave owners.)
RE: anon, #12: the international slave trade had been illiegal since 1809.
RE: Danny Green, #54: please set aside ad hominem attacks on Lincoln and review the history of the so-called “mountain whites” of eastern Tennessee, northern Alabama, and, to a lesser extent, northwestern Georgia. You may also want to review poor white opposition to Confederate conscription (which began in the spring of 1862) and the increasingly common refrain that the war was “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”
theKansasCitian commented:
It always worries me when a “conservative” is so quick to attack Ron Paul. Because again and again the only reason they do so is because Ron Paul does not support spreading democracy through war… something conservatives believed up until the wars in Iraq and Afgahnistan.
Ron Paul’s statement hear is not that the North should have bought the slaves, it’s that if they truly did not want the war and they truly wanted to fight it to end slavery, they would have made the offer to buyout slave owners. It’s not unprecedented either, as that is exactly what other countries did at the time.
You also didn’t research very well, because documents showed Lincoln did look into doing just that…
“In a letter to Illinois Sen. James A. McDougall dated March 14, 1862, Lincoln laid out the estimated cost to the nation’s coffers of his “emancipation with compensation” proposal. Paying slave-holders $400 for each of the 1,798 slaves in Delaware listed in the 1860 Census, he wrote, would come to $719,200 at a time when the war was soaking up $2 million a day.”
Plus, US Census data shows there were 3.9 million slaves in the entire US, not just the south. Even at a cost of $400 per slave, as Lincoln proposed, thats only $1.5 billion, not $2.2 as the bogger you quote suggests.
By the time you ad the total cost of almost $7 billion, and the cost of lives lost, 600,000, $1.5 billion is a clear bargain.
bg commented:
++
re: bg #30
ht Militant Conservative
Whites, Blacks and Racist Democrats
==
Big Mo commented:
The KansasCitian – your argument assumes that the Planters would have gone for compensated emancipation. The actual historical record denies that this was possible, because the Planters were fully invested in slavery. It was their livlihood and the basis of their domination of the south and of national politics.
The best examination of just how much the South was dominated by slavery can be found in two primary sources: North Carolinian Hinton Helper’s 1857 “The Impending Crisis of the South and How to Meet It,” and Central Park designer Frderick Law Olmsted’s 1859-1861 narratives of his travels throughout the entire south just before the war.
Lincoln dangled compensated emancipation–and other measures, such as readmittance to the Union with slavery intact — as inticements to keep the border states from leaving the union. These dangled carrots were solidly rebuffed. With his signing of the E.P. on Jan. 1, 1863, compensated emancipation became moot.
Marsh commented:
Ron Paul is like a broken clock. Every once in a while he’s right. Lincoln was indeed a tyrant and the hero worship surrounding him is completely absurd. The states ~were~ like sovreign countries back then and they all ~democratically~ decided to leave the union within their own state legislature. Lincoln and the Northern states were like “Screw that. We’re going to force you to remain part of America whether you like it or not.”
Lincoln then sent tens of thousands of armed troops to crush the rebellion and to force the people of the South to remain loyal to the authority of Washington D.C. at gun point. There’s nothing glamorous or heroic about that decision. It would be a bit like China invading Taiwan and forcing them to remain under he control of Beijing. Or if Quebec decided to delcare indedence from Canada and then Canada as a result invaded Quebec. Or it would be as if half of America decided to declare independence from Washington D.C. today and as a result Obama sent in the U.S. military to crush them.
Would you take part in such a war? Would you feel comfortable with killing millions of your fellow Americans just to force them to remain under the boot of the White House and Congress? You’d probably be tempted to join the resistance. Which is what many Northerners did in fact. Lincoln had all those people thrown in jail without a trial. Lincoln was a tyrant, period. The only reason we worship him today is because the victors wrote the history books.
Also the cause of the Civil War is very debatable. People have oversimplified the causes and pretended it was all over slavery when it simply wasn’t. In fact, many Southerners were pissed off at Washington D.C. for many of the same reasons we are today. The South got taxed the most by far and the majority of that money went to government projects in the North which obviously pissed Southerners off.
The Lincoln administration also wanted to greatly expand the role of the central government and was hostile to the agrarian lifestyle of the South. The Southerners saw this as a states rights issue and a battle for limited government and a resistance to tyranny and foreign occupation. The South has been far too demonized as evil racists who were fighting to preserve slavery while the angelic Northerners who were fighting to end slavery.
First of all, slavery didn’t just exist in the South and most Southerners didn’t own slaves. In fact, only about 5% did. And the Northerners were just as racist as the Southerners were. Most soldiers enlisted to “preserve the union” aka to force the Southern states to remain a part of America by force of arms. When Lincoln announced late in the war that he was going to free the ~Southern~ slaves (but not the Northern slaves) many Union soldiers deserted.
And Lincoln himself hated black people. He thought they were racially inferior to whites and was planning on shipping them all back to Africa once they were free because he didn’t think they could ever live like civilized whites do in American society. He even said he cared more about preserving the union then he did about ending slavery. So while ultimately Lincoln probably made the right decision to keep America unified for longterm stability and prosperity it was by no means a clear cut decision at the time.
And we definitely could have ended slavery without a war. Tons of other countries in the world did. And Ron Paul is right that the Civil War resulted in a huge increase of federal authority.
Scott J commented:
Big Mo brings good arguments but not all are accurate in my mind. You are right that the slavery subject was PART of the politics. The rest was power and influence. It was a political fight for power using slavery as the sword.
What you miss is that very few people in the south owned slaves. Only the elite held slaves. Many whites were indentured servants that were treated worse than slaves. So why would these same people go out and fight for slavery? They didnt, they fought against a way of life, for the right to chose ones own course. To protect their states sovereignty. The Civil war is called the war for states rights by many for a reason. I have read that when the first states first seceded they left the legislature shaking hands. It wasnt until the North showed hostilities did war break out.
Preserving the Union was the call to arms not slavery. Slavery was brought up late in the game when the North was losing every battle they fought against the superior generals of the south. It was a recruiting tool, war propaganda. Imagine the power of this type of propaganda at that time. It was to demoralize the enemy in thinking that the only reason they fought was to help the rich keep slaves and it helped the north recruit.
Ultimately the war righted the great wrong of slavery. But to claim Lincoln a great hero for it is disingenuous. He broke the law to preserve the union and created a new presidence for future presidents and legislature. He ravaged his fellow country men and their lands. We now are starting to reap the rewards of Lincolns true legacy, a over powering federal government that stomps out all states rights and sovereignty. This is not a legacy that I celebrate, nor should any other self claimed conservatives.
bg commented:
++
theKansasCitian @ 1:28 pm #68
ok, not sure what your supposed data represents,
but check out this researched/documented data..
[The fact is large numbers of free Negroes owned black slaves; in fact, in numbers disproportionate to their representation in society at large. In 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves. According to the U.S. census report for that last year before the Civil War, there were nearly 27 million whites in the country. Some eight million of them lived in the slaveholding states.
The census also determined that there were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves (1). Even if all slaveholders had been white, that would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country (or 4.8 percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves).
[..]
According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were nearly 4.5 million Negroes in the United States, with fewer than four million of them living in the southern slaveholding states. Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country’s leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free Negroes in that city.
To return to the census figures quoted above, this 28 percent is certainly impressive when compared to less than 1.4 percent of all American whites and less than 4.8 percent of southern whites. The statistics show that, when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters.]
much more @ link..
==
bg commented:
++
re: bg #73
oh (fitb)!!
forgot to include the LINK..
==
Big Mo commented:
Scott J – You do me a disservice by claiming things I don’t understand.
And I thoroughly disagree with what you wrote.
It’s difficult to distill Lincoln, the war and emancipation in blog posts; you could check out what I wrote on Lincoln at the site I linked to in my first post.
Estragon commented:
KansasCitian: “It always worries me when a “conservative” is so quick to attack Ron Paul. Because again and again the only reason they do so is because Ron Paul does not support spreading democracy through war…”
Pointing out the man’s deficiencies seems fair enough. If Ron Paul’s foreign policy had been in place after WWII, we would be living in Soviet America today, because we would not have countered the advance of communism until they were coming up the Mississippi River in rowboats, when it would have been too late.
He proclaims the need for a gold standard, when there is scarcely enough gold in the whole world to back our currency alone – IF we owned it all, which we do not. Yet he seldom mentions in his constant pumping of gold prices that his personal wealth is in gold and mining stocks, and anything which causes the price to rise puts cash in his pockets.
This “man of principle” spent most of his career, and his LP Presidential campaign, arguing for “open borders” – UNTIL recent years when concerns about immigration might have affected his reelection, so now his tune is different.
The same man who whines and cries about spending, but makes sure all his own earmarks are in every appropriation bill – before he votes against it once it is certain to pass, just so he can lie about opposing the spending.
Paul is a two-faced, self-serving hypocrite as well as a fringe nut. I don’t expect his gullible minions to understand this, of course, because they aren’t the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree themselves.
Big Mo commented:
Sorry, Scott J, I mean I disagree with your conclusion.
After all, even though the North lost most of the battles in the East until Antietam, the North WON most if not all of the battles in the West in the entire war, including Forts Henry and Donnellson, Shiloh, Pea Ridge, Iuka, Corinth, Perryville, Stone’s River, etc.
And slavery was not “bought up late in the game” as you claim. It has been there all along.
Emancipation was not a depserate
Big Mo commented:
(oops, scratch the last line.)
bg commented:
++
hey Ron..
please tell me if any of this will stop US from being attacked by Islamists, or Obama from bringing US down from within?? do you think buying the enemy off, converting & paying the Khums will save US a war in the long run?? Obama thinks so, that’s exactly what he’s doing, Lincoln?? Civil War?? pffft!! who cares, they’re all dead, and our childrens futures, if they haven’t been already, are certainly going to be if we don’t wake the heck up!! /sarc/
==
Danny Green commented:
RE:JB in GA#67
I am very well versed in Appalachian American history. I have studdied it for most of my life because it is my home. What am I supposed to take from it that has any bearing on this? I completely fail to see how it relates. They did not own slaves and were essentially separatists.
Why should I or anyone ignore Lincolns well documented mental illness? It seems to me that it is EXTREMELY relevant to someone who bears 90% of the responsibilty of killing 600,000+ people.
I am well aware of that conflicting views of the war existed from all classes of people, even the poor. That is why the war was said to be brother against brother. The fact of the matter however is that the Confederate army was composed almost entirely of non slave owning working people who volunteered. Classism was more common then than now. Can you honestly believe that the average man would VOLUNTEER to fight a bloody war down to bare feet to preserve the wealth of the elite he resented? Especially considering that weakening the big plantations would benefit the average farmer.
Make no bones about it, the starving soldiers who were fighting a bloody war barefooted were not fighting for the wealth of the rich, they were fighting for their freedom and homes.
I think the whole concept of Lincoln buying the slaves is nonsense. It simply couldn’t happen for many, many reasons. Perhaps the biggest reason is that Lincoln did not care about the slaves. He never abolished slavery in non Confederate states and he spoke many times about the blacks being inferior and how they should never integrate with white culture.
Lincoln was an abolitionist as were many people, north and south. However he never thought the slaves were equal and he never passed any legislation to help them. As most people know the Emancipation Proclamation was nothing but a war document to spite the south and left slavery in place in non Confederate states and territories.
If you want to get a feeling for Lincoln in the civil war you need to read many of the writings of the people who survived The Burning. Not the watered down three paragraphs the liberal history books include. The 5 months Sheridan devoted to Killing, burning houses, mills and crops, looting, raping women and burning anything that sustains life in a 100 mile path of The Valley. Liberal historians want to whitewash or eliminate this shamefull chapter of Lincoln but there are many writing from the people who lived through it. Lincoln did not stop Sheridan’s campaign until the NORTHERN press started publishing stories and photos of the crimes against humaity he was commiting and the nothern people here horrified that this was happening in this country.
My mother has a saying that the history books are alway written by the winners of the war not by truth
theKansasCitian commented:
Big Mo – No offense, but you are wrong. Buying out slave owners is exactly what Brittain did. And it worked well.
Hasn’t it ever bothered you that so many other countries had slavery, yet ours was the only one to do so after losing 600,000 lives?
True or False, the biggest problem facing us to day is the over reaching and constitution intrusions by our federal government?
Lincoln did more than any other president to give the federal government the impression that that was okay.
Paul is dead on here. Lincoln was a Duchebag. He didn’t free the slaves because he believed in equality, in fact he said on several occassions he didn’t and was against freeing them. Paul is simply pointing out that Lincoln’s goal was not to end slavery but to strengthen the federal government.
I think Ron Paul goes too far on a lot of his issues, but there is no mistaking that his ideas and his followers have been the driving force behind the current desire for our nation to return to its constitutional roots.
There’s a reason guys like Barry Goldwater Jr endorse him.
The only reason anyone brushes him off as a kook is because they are sheeple who can’t see the forest for the trees. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with fighting Islamic terrorists, nothing. Never did, never will.
Terrorists are already in this country plotting and scheming.
Maybe instead of blasting Paul, guys like GP, Rush, etc should be asking why they are so willing to believe islamic terror is a dyer threat and we must spend a trillion a year on wars in the middle east but we don’t need nor desire to strengthen our borders and ports?
Because these wars aren’t about terrorists attacking the US… no they aren’t about oil either… I’ll leave it to you to figure out, it aint hard.
EdGi commented:
Cheeze, people spinning history again, Paul’s people being as bad at it as the Zinn lefties. The Hamilton era project called the “Maturization” project did exist to buy back the slaves in return for banning slavery, but it never went anywhere in either the Southern states or the Nothern abolition states, sadly and to the cost of all. “Maturization: project would have used the same debt obligations scheme Hamilton and Washington used to pay the Revolutionary War debt that would have bankrupted the then new constitutional national governent otherwise. Hamilton/Washington were successful on the war debt, but there was no support for the similar slavery buy-out, and it stayed in the background through the Civil War. Trully sad, but today both the Paul and Zinn crouds are just as sad today.
Pat the First commented:
Ron Paul is a nut. I would put Abraham Lincoln heads above Paul. I find his policies ridiculous, isolationist and just plain scary. I hope he fades from the American political fabric soon. He is an embarrassment.
bg commented:
++
theKansasCitian @ 3:21 pm #82
you haven’t got clue one about the Iraq
War, ample anti-Bush opinions perhaps..
however, and thank God, opinions facts do not make..
==
czekmark commented:
If you want to get to the root of the slavery problem, blame the founders who capitulated to the slave holders instead of abolishing slavery in the constitution. Understandably they thought this was necessary for the formation of the union but slavery was vigorously debated before the compromise of leaving it untouched.
bg commented:
++
theKansasCitian @ 3:21 pm #82
re: [Hasn’t it ever bothered you that so many other countries had
slavery, yet ours was the only one to do so after losing 600,000 lives?]
not sure i understand the ?,
but here you go anyways..
(just a sample)
slavery yesterday
slavery today
more links @ bg #30
==
historian commented:
The only possible way buying the slaves would have worked is if they carried out Lincoln’s plan to ship them back to Africa. The nothern states would never allowed them there. Lincoln was even in great support of the black code laws in his home state.
Illinois “Black Law”of 1853 , no black from another state could remain within the Illinois borders for more than ten days. Beyond ten days and he or she was subject to arrest, confinement in jail, and a $50 fine and removal from the state. If unable to pay the fine, the law directed the sheriff to auction the offending African-American to the bidder willing to pay the costs and the tine and to work the “guilty” party the fewest number of days. If the convicted man or woman did not leave within ten days after completing the required service, the process resumed, but the fine was increased $50 for each additional infraction.
It stayed in effect until after the war ended. That law or similar ones were in effect in many northern states.
Dennis commented:
I wonder if Ron Paul thinks we should end the war on drugs by making the Federal Government buy everyone’s drugs.
marmo commented:
Here’s the hole in Ron Paul’s theory: If I was a southern slave owner and the North bought all my slaves, I’d look around and think “Who is going to work in my fields now? I guess I better order some more slaves with all this extra money I have now.”
He didn’t really think that one through. This wouldn’t really have changed the mindset of those slave owners that thought slavery was OK.
(Please note I do not condone slavery, I was merely putting myself into the mind of a pre-Civil War era southern slave owner.)
Derek Smith commented:
GP, you probably should add to the cost of the Civil War the amount required to rebuild after the destruction. This is separate from the actual funds used to fight.
In addition, purchasing the slaves would not have had to be done just through coughing up a few billion in the budget. The US held and still holds vast tracts of federal land. Some of this land has been given away from time to time to facilitate political policies. For example, during Lincoln’s term, the Feds gave land to the states so that they could sell it to raise funds to create the land-grant colleges. Railroads were also given vast parcels of land as an incentive to build the Transcontinental Railway.
So Lincoln conceivably could have given land as compensation for freeing the slaves. Or he could have sold off parcels of federal land and used the proceeds to help cover the cost of freeing the slaves. Either way, the vast amount of land held by the Feds would have allowed Lincoln to free the slaves without breaking the budget and increasing the national debt.
bertogem commented:
Ron Paul is right. Don’t go turning on one of our own. Over and out.
wanumba commented:
czekmark
April 1st, 2010 | 4:06 pm | #87
If you want to get to the root of the slavery problem, blame the founders who capitulated to the slave holders instead of abolishing slavery in the constitution. Understandably they thought this was necessary for the formation of the union but slavery was vigorously debated before the compromise of leaving it untouched.
………………….
Look at it this way, with the logistics involved – no phones, no planes or trains or cars, no electricity, no budget, it’s pretty close to a bona fide miracle we got the Constitution as it is in the first place.
Now, they didn’t completely fold to the slave owners, did they? The Constitution was written in such a manner that slavery was doomed.
Give the Founders Fathers a break. There are only so many hours in a day and years in a life and it takes more than a few days to sail from Boston to Philadelphia, ride on a horse from North Carolina and BACK again to get signatures and approvals. Forget winter travel, too. No way.
They had the power to codify slavery into the Constitution, but they didn’t. Many owned slaves and could have protected that right, but they didn’t. As soon as the Constitution was ratified, slavery was on its way out, it was only a matter of time, because it was a practice that was in total opposition to the human rights as set forth – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The Founding Fathers didn’t end slavery that day, but they set into place their legacy, which was the solid foundation for definitely ending slavery in the next generation.
They knew what they were doing, it wasn’t an accident.
Wallace commented:
If I were a supporter of slavery (which I am not, but if I were) and Lincoln had made an offer to purchase all of my slaves, I’d have sold them at a handsome profit. Then I’d get more of them. And I’d sell them again. Then I’d get more of them. And so on. Until Lincoln would bankrupt the North.
The stupidity of Paul’s idea is that without the change of the social and political climate, slavery would have gone on forever. What Lincoln did was exactly Hope and Change in a very real deed to enforce the inalienable right that all men are born as equal and not just some lip-service. Freedom has its costs.
wanumba commented:
Ron Paul’s assertations are coming out of the trendy “Conflict Resolution” fantasy of international relations and he’s just trying to find justification for his ideas.
It’s all the rage in elite academia. Harvard has a group pushing this stuff. Know an official who was invited to participate in a “Conflict Resolution” workshop at Harvard not too long ago. The attendees included former rebels, UN humanitarian and peacekeeping types. They were interested in improving truly high-level negotiation skills, insights and so forth.
Second day into this, the conference facilitatators’ nerves finally fail and they plaintively are looking at the disgusted participants, “You don’t look very happy?”
Damn straight they weren’t happy. Got guys who lived in the bush and fought rebel resistence for years and are high ranking officials in their governments wasting their time stuck with puff-pieces of “listening strategies” to “how to talk to your employees” and “women versus men communication mix-ups.” The forward of the book used for the seminar included the idea that WWII could have been avoided by “better communication with Hitler.”
They were interested in how to better handle the likes of Joseph Kone of the brutal LRA, who kidnaps entire schools of children, brutalizing the boys into child soldiers for his army and the girls into sex slaves, cutting the kids off their villages forever by forcing them to shoot their friends and family members or be killed. At the time, Kone’s top guy was General Sunday, who had a practice of cannibalism to scare the living daylights out of everyone. Which he was so successful at, Kone finally had him killed, just in case.
The Ivy League intellectuals were completely – emotionally, rationally, intellectually, experiencially INCAPABLE of dealing with the real-life problems of the group they had in front of them, but they were, in the USA, the “experts” on these issues.
These airy talks of “we could have done this ” or “Lincoln could have done that” are no better than DAYDREAMS, in fact worse, because everyone recognizes the airiness of a daydream, while these ideas of “appeasment works” are delusional and often suicidal.
wanumba commented:
People like Joseph Kone can’t be negotiated with. Negotiations for them are means to sweet talk to obtain more supplies to keep them in the business of totally wrecking other people’s lives. They have to be destroyed, and that means going after them with lethal force.
People who push negotiating and “Communications” as the solution to ALL conflicts always assume the other side is as interested in talking, but too many times they just are not.
Derek Smith commented:
“If I were a supporter of slavery (which I am not, but if I were) and Lincoln had made an offer to purchase all of my slaves, I’d have sold them at a handsome profit. Then I’d get more of them. And I’d sell them again. Then I’d get more of them. And so on. Until Lincoln would bankrupt the North.”
“Ron Paul’s assertations are coming out of the trendy “Conflict Resolution” fantasy of international relations and he’s just trying to find justification for his ideas.”
Folks, this idea is not Ron Paul’s invention, nor did he pull it out of left field. It was done by others prior to our Civil War, and they did not have to deal with slave owners repeatedly slaves to game the system. In fact, Lincoln even pondered the idea in this 1862 letter.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1077
Craig commented:
Unbelievable! You Americans do not know your history. Lincoln was one of your worst predident. Wake-up out there. And the war on terror is to scare you so you will give up your freedom for your security. It’s all about controlling you enslaving you. Ron Paul never voted on a bill that was unconstitutional… so why do you hate him so much? Boy you people are screwed up!
Bob commented:
Although he was against slavery, Lincoln’s first and primary aim was to maintain the union. Lincoln said that if he could save the union by freeing all the slaves, he would; if he could save the union by freeing some of the slaves, he would; and if he could free the union by freeing none of the slaves, he would.
I’ve long been amused by what we “know” about the civil war. Paul’s is at least refreshing.
Affectionate_beauty commented:
How you think when the economic crisis will end? I wish to make statistics of independent opinions!
seejay commented:
Dr. Paul has more integrity than anyone here does.
bg commented:
++
wanumba @ 11:28 pm #96
Amen..
Is It Right to Fight?
[One other point, if everyone was a pacifist except the evil and lawbreakers of the world, then the world would be run by evil dictators or our society would be anarchy.
Pacifism in its fullest sense is untenable in the sinful world in which we live.
[snip]
The subject “Is it right to fight?” is a difficult issue because it makes us face the awful issues of a suppressive dictatorship, evil aggression, killing and death on the one hand and the “necessary evil” of war to stop it. Could this be the reason that General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Fredericksburg said, “It is well that war is so terrible—we should grow too fond of it.” The just war position, in the writer’s opinion, fits best with the Scriptural evidence.
Remember, it is possible to love your enemies and use force against him. The principle that love is embraced in laws of justice helps us see that loving one’s enemy is to make sure that justice prevails. In doing so, the Christian is also demonstrating “love for the ones his enemy has hurt.”]
“On Moral Equivalency and Cold War History”
Ethics & International Affairs, Volume 10 (1996)
[Where does that leave us, though, with the new evidence we have about the victims of Stalin and Mao Zedong? One recent but reliable estimate suggests that Stalin's domestic victims alone - when one totals not only the figures for the purges but also for the collectivization of agriculture and the famine that resulted from it - numbered about twenty million dead. This does not count the additional acknowledged twenty-seven million Soviet citizens who died as a result of World War II. But this is not the worst of it. Estimates of those who died in one single episode - the Chinese famine produced by Mao's ill-conceived Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1961 - now come to some thirty million, thereby qualifying the Chairman (whose image was once a popular adornment for t-shirts and dormitory wall posters in the West) as perhaps the greatest mass murderer of all time.
[snip]
Why didn’t the United States exploit its advantage to keep the Soviet Union from developing its own bomb? Or to avoid near-defeat in Korea? These are complicated questions, but one of the answers that comes up, when one looks at what American officials said to each other, is the conviction that a democracy could only use such a weapon as a last resort, and in self-defense.
But that in turn raises another interesting question of comparative morality: would an authoritarian system – one based on an ideology that explicitly justified any means necessary to achieve its ends, one that employed terror as a method of government, and one as casual about the loss of human life as were Stalin’s and Mao’s – have shown similar restraint had it got the bomb first?
[snip]
We need to be careful about the methodological metaphors we keep in our minds. Too much of Cold War history was written as if its major contenders were indeed featureless billiard balls, whose internal composition and character didn’t much matter. In retrospect, apples and oranges might have been the better metaphor: at least it would have allowed for irregularity, asymmetry, and the possibility of internal rot.]
same holds true today more than ever..
Death by Government
[How can we understand all this killing by communists? It is the marriage of an absolutist ideology with the absolute power. Communists believed that they knew the truth, absolutely. They believed that they knew through Marxism what would bring about the greatest human welfare and happiness. And they believed that power, the dictatorship of the proletariat, must be used to tear down the old feudal or capitalist order and rebuild society and culture to realize this utopia. Nothing must stand in the way of its achievement. Government--the Communist Party--was thus above any law. All institutions, cultural norms, traditions, and sentiments were expendable. And the people were as though lumber and bricks, to be used in building the new world.
Constructing this utopia was seen as though a war on poverty, exploitation, imperialism, and inequality. And for the greater good, as in a real war, people are killed. And thus this war for the communist utopia had its necessary enemy casualties, the clergy, bourgeoisie, capitalists, wreckers, counterrevolutionaries, rightists, tyrants, rich, landlords, and noncombatants that unfortunately got caught in the battle. In a war millions may die, but the cause may be well justified, as in the defeat of Hitler and an utterly racist Nazism. And to many communists, the cause of a communist utopia was such as to justify all the deaths. The irony of this is that communism in practice, even after decades of total control, did not improve the lot of the average person, but usually made their living conditions worse than before the revolution. It is not by chance that the greatest famines have occurred within the Soviet Union (about 5,000,000 dead during 1921-23 and 7,000,000 from 1932-3) and communist China (about 27,000,000 dead from 1959-61). In total almost 55,000,000 people died in various communist famines and associated diseases, a little over 10,000,000 of them from democidal famine. This is as though the total population of Turkey, Iran, or Thailand had been completely wiped out. And that something like 35,000,000 people fled communist countries as refugees, as though the countries of Argentina or Columbia had been totally emptied of all their people, was an unparalleled vote against the utopian pretensions of Marxism-Leninism.
But communists could not be wrong. After all, their knowledge was scientific, based on historical materialism, an understanding of the dialectical process in nature and human society, and a materialist (and thus realistic) view of nature. Marx has shown empirically where society has been and why, and he and his interpreters proved that it was destined for a communist end. No one could prevent this, but only stand in the way and delay it at the cost of more human misery. Those who disagreed with this world view and even with some of the proper interpretations of Marx and Lenin were, without a scintilla of doubt, wrong. After all, did not Marx or Lenin or Stalin or Mao say that. . . . In other words, communism was like a fanatical religion. It had its revealed text and chief interpreters. It had its priests and their ritualistic prose with all the answers. It had a heaven, and the proper behavior to reach it. It had its appeal to faith. And it had its crusade against nonbelievers.
What made this secular religion so utterly lethal was its seizure of all the state's instrument of force and coercion and their immediate use to destroy or control all independent sources of power, such as the church, the professions, private businesses, schools, and, of course, the family.]
more @ links..
what the fascist left have been aiming for is to “equate” good with evil.. that’s the only way they can appease their conscience in the face of the harsh reality they are trying to escape from because it does not fit in with their ideological utopian matrix.. if there is no good vs evil, then all is good even if [the] all is evil.. – bg
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bg commented:
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ps re: bg #103
re: wanumba @ 11:28 pm #96
re: “better communication with Hitler.”
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bg commented:
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wanumba..
hope you’re still here..
some great news..
["As Sudanese Christians celebrate Holy Week, we want them all to know about this church. It is our way, as Darfuri Muslims, to thank every Sudanese Christian who has helped us in our hour of need. We need our brothers in the South to stand with us now more than ever, so that we will have a just peace," says Dr. Abdelgabar Adam, the President of the Darfur Human Rights Organization of the USA, which is partnering with Sudan Sunrise, the Kansas-based non-profit that is sponsoring this project.
Construction began in January, when Lopez Lomong brought a team of five Muslim students to his home town of Kimotong to make compressed earth blocks. Lopez has returned to the US to compete in international track competitions, and is now raising funds through Sudan Sunrise so that the $85,000 church can be completed in the fall.
Sudan Sunrise works with Manute Bol (at 7' 7" the tallest player in NBA history), on a reconciliation and school-building project in Sudan. Manute, who lost 250 family members at the hands of the Muslim North in the 23 year civil war, is working to build 41 schools that will benefit not just Southern Sudanese children, but Darfurian and other Muslim children also. Manute says, "Muslims are not my enemies, they are my brothers." The Darfurians who are building the Reconciliation Church have been working closely with Manute to build his first school in Turalei, and from this had the vision for the reconciliation church.
Lopez Lomong states "The people of Kimotong were so happy to welcome our brothers and sister from Darfur. We are all so excited about this church. It's awesome to have Northerners help build it. This church will be a symbol to all
of Sudan that we can live in peace."]
now all we have to do is hope & pray the Islamists don’t
go on another 9/11 mission (so to speak).. and they stop kidnapping & enslaving the people like they have been for centuries now.. *sigh*
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wanumba commented:
bg
Many thanks!
Great background – especially want to highlight the point captured there about the propensity of especially intellectuals to treat players as “billard balls” or set pieces, not people with strengths and weaknesses, morals or no morals who constantly have to make decisions based on what information they have, not knowing what they don’t have, the constraints of the logistics, time, even weather (Spanish Armada?). Too much controlled environment classroom, not enough “boots on the ground.”
Sudan is lurching forward to next week’s national elections. Listened to one UN briefing recently that President Bashir, who is under indictment in the Hague for crimes against humanity is in a peculiar pickle. He needs to stay as president. BUT, he actually needs about as proper an election as Sudan can produce in order to show the world he has genuine legitimacy. So, he’s actually campaigning and behaving himself as best he is capable of. This unexpected situation favors a bit the South’s need for fair elections, too, which will then set the stage for the historic referendum in 2011. It’s tough for the South, for the government to put itself out for elections because it means they have to accept the possibility of losing a few seats without panicking – they have been governing only four years, the frist year of which was a new government that didn’t even have a file cabinet, a budget, roads, or support staff. And all this while tribal groups clash over traditional feuds, the still unresolved oil wealth sharing between North and South … a thousand things that observers and the gloomy media just wail means “can’t be done,” yet at the end of each day, somehow they are another tiny step closer to achieving their goals.
bg commented:
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wanumba @10:39 am #106
many welcomes..
yes, it’s hard to do the right thing when the people’s of any a country are treated like pawns & consistently stuck between a rock & a hard place..
my wish for the Sudan/Darfur is to beat back the norm (grasshopper & ant society so to speak) & overcome the obstructionists & build a great society based on liberty for all..
thanks..
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DANEgerus commented:
But those (D)emocrat slave owners wouldn’t sell…