The Republican Party: Historical Enemy of Liberty

A Republican president initiated a bloody war, citing a grave threat to national security. Those challenging the lawfulness or morality of the war were branded as disloyal and swept aside by a flood of jingoistic demagoguery masked as patriotism. Enemies were imprisoned for years without being charged; habeas corpus was suspended.

As the death toll mounted, the national defense justification wore thin - so the war was deftly morphed into a crusade for democratic government. Being a wordsmith, the Commander in Chief used his considerable verbal skills to obfuscate his contempt for the Constitution, framing those whose land he invaded as the aggressors.

One wouldn’t describe the oratorically challenged George W. Bush as a wordsmith, so the rogue president described above is, obviously, Abe Lincoln.

The first Republican president imprisoned thousands of people for criticizing his war, and shut down several newspapers. The grandson of Francis Scott Key, a newspaper editor, was imprisoned for a couple of years in Ft. McHenry, where his grandpa had written our national anthem.

Abe Lincoln invented a law against secession, the threat of which, along with nullification, was the chief check on government power. During the War of 1812, several of the New England states threatened to secede. Their decision to remain in the Union was based on practical grounds – no serious objections were raised on legal grounds.

Moreover, Virginia had ratified the Constitution with the understanding that she could withdraw from the Union at any time.

Lincoln’s Real Agenda

Lincoln plainly stated that the war wasn’t about ending slavery, but preserving the Union, which he claimed was his “solemn” duty.

As a mercantilist, Lincoln’s real priority was looking out for the interests of his corporate friends and continuing to collect protectionist tariffs from southern ports. He was shrewd enough to play both sides of the slavery issue, so that while enraging southern fire-eaters, he could garner tentative support from some of the radical abolitionists.

Abe’s agenda - corporate welfare for railroads, a central bank, and protectionist tariffs – couldn’t coexist with states’ rights.

So Abe invaded Virginia, and made the tenth amendment a nullity. His war killed 620,000 of the country’s most virile males (projecting to six million dead in modern America), and transformed states into de facto provinces.

The Great Emancipator held racist views (admittedly typical for the day), believing in the superiority of the white race. He worked diligently to find a way to colonize blacks out of the United States. His home state of Illinois was one of several northern states that forbade immigration of free blacks.

We Hate War, But We Love Shooting Southerners

Progressives who oppose the Iraq War glibly accept the carnage heaped on the old South for the one happy result: slavery’s demise. Students learn that the Civil War (it wasn’t actually a “civil war,” but we don’t have time) was a great advance for liberty.

Does anyone remember a classroom “what if?” discussion of what might’ve happened to the institution of slavery had Lincoln not made war on the South?

Some thoughts for discussion, should a daring teacher wish to venture out of the unreflective, progressive box:

· Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee would’ve stayed in the Union.
· A constitutional amendment would’ve passed ending slavery in the United States.
· The seven state CSA would’ve been subject to trade embargoes from most of Europe and the USA.
· In addition to the South facing disapproval and boycotts from the rest of the civilized world, anti-slavery southerners (like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson- but those two Virginians would’ve stayed in the Union) would’ve lent their influence to the abolitionist cause, rather than having to protect their country from an invading army.
· While slavery lingered in the Deep South, escaped slaves wouldn’t have had as far to flee (Tennessee is closer than Kentucky), nor would the North have been legally obligated to return them to the South.
· Even allowing for some skirmishes, slavery would’ve ended with 500,000 fewer deaths, and with less rancor between the races; there would’ve been no KKK.

Students are taught to disapprove of the betrayal and slaughter of the Indians, but not to reflect on the fact that these were carried out by the same Republican stalwarts who destroyed the South: Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Custer et al.

Exporting Republican Imperialism

After destroying states’ rights and breaking numerous treaties with the Indians, Republicans sought to expand their empire. McKinley and Hearst maneuvered the country into war with Spain, thereby acquiring Guam and the Philippines. The expansion of America’s reach into the South Pacific set the stage for our future war against Japan, as well as the debacles in Korea and Vietnam.

The Spanish-American War also propelled Theodore Roosevelt to national prominence, and ultimately the presidency.

TR was a genuine war monger. No hypocrite –he eagerly risked his life at San Juan Hill, then as a middle-aged ex-president wanted to take a regiment to France during the Great War. Woodrow Wilson wouldn’t allow it.

He was the first progressive – a statist and an imperialist. He advanced Lincoln’s contempt for states’ rights into a disregard for the sovereignty of other nations.

Prohibition (of Secession) Ends

TR and his friends wanted to build a canal in Colombia, but the recalcitrant Colombians wouldn’t come to terms…

…Whereupon Teddy reversed Abe Lincoln, and decreed that secession was acceptable – for the Colombian province of Panama. The American fleet was positioned off Colombia’s coast to provide moral support for the secessionists, and the new nation of Panama subsequently proved amenable to making a deal for a canal.

The Republican Party has never been about limited government (individual Republicans excepted, e.g. Calvin Coolidge) or fealty to the Constitution, unlike the Democratic Party, which was an opposition party until Woodrow Wilson – who took imperialism to new levels, jailed political opponents, and set the stage for the Democrats to equal the Republicans as usurpers of power under FDR.

Republicans and the Legacy of Hamilton

Republicans are the historical heirs apparent of the Federalists, the party of Alexander Hamilton (who, despite having lost a son in a duel, agreed to duel Aaron Burr), who advocated primacy of the central government, and hated Jefferson, who believed in states’ rights. Federalists opposed the Bill of Rights – these first ten amendments to the Constitution were agreed to only when it became clear ratification would fail otherwise.

The Federalists disbanded after they made themselves odious with the Sedition Act. Patriots were not pleased about citizens being arrested for disagreeing with the government.

They were replaced by the Whigs, the party of Henry Clay and of Abe Lincoln, before he became a Republican.

Two Parties: Zero Opposition to Expanding State Power

After Wilson and FDR established the Democrats as both the Welfare State and Warfare State party, Republicans marketed themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility, free enterprise, and national security - aided by the Democrats’ association with the likes of Alger Hiss, and the consternation felt in some quarters by the bigger, more intrusive government left in place by the New Deal.

In reality, government has continued to grow under both parties. The tenth amendment remains a nullity.

Government grew under Reagan. There were mitigating factors. Tip O’Neill’s Congress never submitted a balanced budget, and the military had been dismantled under Carter (under whom families of some enlisted men were getting food stamps). Still, some libertarians and conservatives (e.g. The Heritage Foundation) were unhappy that Reagan didn’t try line item veto - knowing it would be challenged in court - and let the Democrats bear the entire stigma for out of control spending.

Reagan gave us George H. W. Bush, who gave us more government, and the first Gulf War, which logically led to the current Iraq malaise.

After Clinton, George W. Bush, allegedly a “conservative,” ended his tenure with a $trillion plus bailout of failing banks, adding to the Republican legacy of disdain for the Constitution and affinity for deficits, and making way for a socialist disciple of Saul Alinsky to spearhead an unprecedented assault against the remaining restraints on government power.

The Democrats are the historical home of progressive Stalinists, and have done nothing to extract the country from its worldwide military obligations. They have been just as devoted to lining the pockets of special interests as Republicans, and have opposed corporate welfare in word, but not in deed.

Nevertheless, it was the Republican Party that originally nullified the Constitution, promoted empire building, and displaced our democratic republic with a democracy – undermining the rule of law, and making our country vulnerable to mob tyranny after the tradition of the French Revolution.