Was Gen. Kelly Right About the Civil War?

General John F. Kelly, Chief of Staff to the President, made some comments about the Civil War recently that sent the enforcers of orthodoxy into apoplexy. Here is our calm response to the controversy. Subscribe to the Tom Woods Show: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
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[@cwi1000]

Gen. Kelley was right. The War of Northern Aggression had NOTHING to do with slavery. Lincoln's illegal war was all about the subjugation of the South, growing a strong centralized government, and raping the natural resources of the South. Lincoln could not bear to lose the revenues from the South, since it was footing over 80% of the tax bill. IF it was about slavery, why did the North not free the more than 420,000 slaves in the union AFTER the South seceded? Lincoln refused to meet with peace delegations from the South. Repeatedly. Lincoln wanted war. He was a despot and a tyrant.

[@777Outrigger]

“On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today’s problems are a result of yesterday’s solutions.” ~Thomas Sowell ... The worse thing that happened to the US was not slavery, but how slavery was ended. Let us examine the South after the war. The war had destroyed two-thirds of Southern railroads and livestock. About 300,000 white Southern males in the prime of adulthood died during the war and perhaps another 200,000 were incapacitated, representing almost 20% of the region’s approximate 2.8 million white males of all ages, and about 33% of young males who could do the back breaking work. Historian David L. Cohn adds: When there was a shortage of work stock, the few surviving animals were passed from neighbor to neighbor. [When] there was no work stock [the men] hitched themselves to the plow. By ingenuity, backbreaking toil, and cruel self-denial thousands of Southern farmers survived reconstruction . . . They received no aid from any source, nor any sympathy outside the region. There were 1,000,000 Blacks who were starving after the war, and an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 died of starvation or disease related to malnutrition. From the Guardian; "Things were so bad that one military official in Tennessee in 1865 wrote that former slaves were: "dying by scores - that sometimes 30 per day die and are carried out by wagonloads without coffins, and thrown promiscuously, like brutes, into a trench". So bad were the health problems suffered by freed slaves, and so high the death rates, that some observers of the time even wondered if they would all die out. One white religious leader in 1863 expected black Americans to vanish. "Like his brother the Indian of the forest, he must melt away and disappear forever from the midst of us," the man wrote." Such was the holocaust that was the Civil War and Reconstruction. It was not a kinder gentler place for Blacks. Slavery in a different form continued for another century. But there were 260,000 free Blacks in the South before the war and usually lived in small towns where they were welcomed and provided essential services as carpenters, painters, black smiths, bricklayers, etc., etc. They attended church with whites. Jim Crowe didn't exist until after the war. Here's a quote from an eye-witness of the time, who was not an American. ""The prejudice of the race appears stronger in the States that have abolished slaves than in the States where slavery still exists. White carpenters, white bricklayers, and white painters will not work side by side with the blacks in the North but do it in almost every Southern State." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville

[@jeffersonianideal]

Robert E. Lee is a much more complicated and introspective human being than the courtroom historians and SJWs have portrayed him.

[@MrDavePed]

Our history of black enslavement has kept California in the union for a long time. If they secede they concede secession is not inherently wrong. That blows their whole construct concerning the history of slavery and the civil war. The gold discovered in California in 1848 was a primary cause of the European banker involvement in the United States' political tensions in the 1850's which ultimately drove such a great wedge between the states that war was the result. Slavery was a convenient wedge issue used by foreign interests to destroy the voluntary nature essential to the genuineness of our union. Ours became a cheap, empty shotgun marriage courtesy of the halfwit A. Lincoln and those who supported him. Since when does the wife have no right whatsoever to divorce? As for compromise it was obvious to any who desired peace between brothers. The federals claimed the improvements (forts) on the lands of the south. Those fortifications should have been compensated by the southern states and the north should have accepted such monetary compensation with good grace and abundant blessings. Lincoln wanted war. Otherwise there would have been no war. ..

[@beaubo67]

This is an excellent show and great job by Kevin Gutzman. The one dislike was by David W. Blight.

[@2vnews902]

Get government out of education. That is the main problem.

[@thomasbenner9621]

www.uspie.org

[@pricture]

Also - www.ronpaulcurriculum.com www.fpeusa.org

[@cedricpod]

there are so many “main” problems … I am choking on all of them

[@jacobwalls452]

Of course he was...General Kelley is a very competent and intelligent human being

[@magnus4g63]

and taxation is theft

[@ironman1233]

magnus4g63 I'm going to start making videos ,like share and subscribe! :)

[@magnus4g63]

veganism 955 ... awesome, will do

[@ironman1233]

magnus4g63 I changed my name

[@magnus4g63]

anarchism unlimited, i like it ;)

[@harviejosephs5515]

Technically speaking it's a robbery :-) Inflation is theft.

[@swilliams937]

The South didn't need to exit the Union to protect slavery, as is the popular misconception. All the southern states needed to do was to ratify the Corwin Amendment. But those states still left--for a host of non-index card reasons. Thanks again.

[@suitandtieguy]

News media: considered a joke by most of the public Universities: steaming towards a student loan bubble Hollywood: on fire This guest is still living in the 90s as far as his media outlook goes.

[@kdeltatube]

Great discussion, very interesting to learn some of the things taught at West Point in REL's day for one thing and the spread of ideological imperialism. Guess that could be a topic for several shows, or has it already? Tom, you owe us more answers, keep hope alive! Keep hope alive! :) :)

[@qwerty9091000]

I actually appreciate the grim vision portrayed in this episode. I think it's as bad as you guys are saying if not worse

[@anthonyburke3000]

The last country in the world to abolish slavery was Mauritania. It ended in 1981. If it took this long, since the American Civil War, for slavery to end globally, would the time table for the world wide end of slavery have been prolonged even further if the United States had just compromised to gradually end slavery as opposed to have gone to war over it?

[@paul407100]

"If you want to change the world, start by cleaning your room" - Jordan Peterson

[@user-ch6fd4nt9n]

The leftist insane outrage about a specific part of history guides me to the truth... usually the completed opposite of what they claim is true. The fact that I’m not allowed to have that opinion makes insatiably curious.

[@edwaggonersr.7446]

If I ever use inclusive language I will have to admit that the bastards have won.

[@roachwoman1]

Tom, what about the christian churches? The contortions required to resolve Catholic teaching with the gender crap are unimagineable. Those institutions have some potential certainly.

[@bbcapryllian9337]

Tom....this goober has no vision....We must create competitive institutions in every thing!!!! Baylor and Liberty and Hillsdale are the new Ivy League. Had Robert Toombs not gotten drunk at the wrong time there would have been a compromise....but that is water under the bridge...I am too harsh on your guest...he has a great handle on cultural marxism...

[@CSSVirginia]

B B Capryllian I live near Liberty University, it's constantly growing.

[@kdeltatube]

Good points, but it I admire Gutzman too much to call him a goober.

[@romanhood4849]

FIRST

[@rickelmonoggin]

Always fun to listen to libertarians trying to justify slavery.

[@aletoledo1]

Is that like when statists justify taxation?

[@rickelmonoggin]

Only in the sense that libertarians like Tom Woods don't seem to be able to see what the big deal is about slavery, whilst at the same time, statists justify taxation on the grounds that without it there would be no state.