EssayJune 9, 2022

More Than Anything, Rising Prosperity Brought On the End of Human Bondage

By Rob Smith·June 9, 2022

Samuel Johnson, the English essayist, Tory and devout Anglican said: “Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent.” I can’t think of a more fitting quote to describe woke historical revisionism, and the criminals are our “Ivy League Elitists” who are so consumed with political indoctrination and hate that they refuse to give proper deference to the workings of history.

It is expected that West Point will be “ordered” to remove Robert E. Lee’s portrait. The Left’s war against the South has nothing to do with understanding the reasons leading to the South’s secession, but everything to do with hating the South for its “anti-central government” culture. If academics acknowledged the real reason for the South’s secession, they would also have to acknowledge the inequities imposed upon the non-elite by today’s tax and spend political patronage system. Before I embark down this road, let me defend Robert E. Lee.

There is no more despicable act in human affairs than to denigrate an honorable man. Robert E. Lee is rightfully revered throughout the South (and world) not just for his martial genius, but for his humanity, sense of honor and personal integrity. Often referred to as the Southern Messiah, for generations his remarkable qualities of character set the standard of gentlemanly behavior to be emulated. Be like Lee. Throughout the English-speaking world, those with Southern roots have images of Lee somewhere in their house. To understand why, I suggest you read the late Bud Roberston’s book on Lee. The Left hates Lee precisely because of his noble attributes. They like haters and those who will circumvent “the means” to arrive at their desired “ends.”

I do not hate the North for its unlawful invasion of the South, its burning, looting, raping, pillaging and money grubbing ways. Those are things that happened in the past, and like all things that happened in the past, events unfolded for reasons. We are all imbued with imperfect human nature, and understanding the world as it existed in certain times allows us to comprehend the rationale for why historical actors took the actions they took. Everyone took actions that seemed reasonable and rational. The proper role of historical analysis is understanding why things happened, and if that can done, events of the past that we find loathsome can be avoided. The argument of South = Bad, and North = Good is very anti-intellectual, so let me give you another side of the story.

Lincoln started the War. South Carolina and the Union agreed to a truce as long as Fort Sumter was not resupplied. Lincoln secretly circumvented his command structure who were abiding by this truce. Lincoln knew that the resupply of Sumter would start the War. He was right. Lincoln then federalized the state militias. In other words, he called upon Virginians to go kill South Carolinians. This is akin to asking people in Vermont to cross the Connecticut River and kill their cousins in New Hampshire. At the time that Lincoln started the War, there were 8 slave states in the Union and only 7 slave states in the Confederacy. Lincoln started the war to protect Northern commercial interests. Over 80% of all the revenue flowing into the Federal treasury came from the states that formed the Confederacy, even though the South had a fraction of the North’s population. The South was free trade, the North lived off tariffs collected at Southern ports. Federal law required Southern merchants to use goods and services emanating out of the North as opposed to the South being free to contract for these items in a global economy. Think what would happen to Northern Commerce should the South secede. On December 10, 1860, the Chicago Times did just this and stated:

"In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwise trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all of its immense profits. Our manufactories would be in utter ruins. Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow. If protection be wholly withdrawn from our labor, it could not compete, with all of the prejudices against it, with the labor of Europe. We should be driven from the market, and millions of our people would be compelled to go out of employment.”

Honest Abe the rail splitter was neither particularly honest nor did he make his money splitting rails. He was a rich corporate lawyer deeply embedded within a corrupt political structure that looked out for its own. Think Perkins Coie today. He knew who buttered his bread. The South wanted independence from this crooked system that had its boot on the South’s neck. Lincoln sent troops to subdue the South. Many historians from all over the world have stated the southern armies were the greatest fighting force in world history. 158 years ago this week, undermanned Confederate defenses at Cold Harbor withstood 14 federal assaults and decimated the Union troops leading to more casualties in such a brief time than any action ever occurring in North America. To this day the creek that runs through the battlefield is named Bloody Run. These soldiers were fighting to protect their homes and families from a rapacious enemy.

93% of Confederate soldiers did not own slaves. One does not endure 4 years of war, extreme hardship and near starvation for the right of the 7% to own slaves. As a congressman and as president, Lincoln sponsored movements to ship black Americans back to Africa. Many Northern states had laws forbidding black immigration. Lincoln is on record stating that blacks were inferior to whites and that the War was to save the Union and not to free slaves. Indeed, these thoughts were repeatedly expressed to the Union Army because Lincoln knew that Union soldiers would never fight if the “alleged” purpose was to free the slaves. Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment, the original 13^th Amendment which had been passed by Congress. It forbid any amendment to the Constitution which abolished or even interfered with slavery. The July 1861 near-unanimous War Aims Resolution passed by the Northern Congress expressly stated that the purpose of the war was to preserve the Union and not interfere with slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation freed practically no slaves and left nearly one million slaves under Union control in bondage.

I have often thought about writing an essay entitled In Defense of Slavery. Naturally, I would be vilified by the vacuous, overly emotive, pseudo-intellectuals now controlling academia. Nothing would please me more! But the essay would not be a defense of slavery, but a story about how slavery came into existence and why it really ended, and it all has to do with economics. The master-servant relationship has existed since the beginning of time. It exists today where for some us 50% of our labor is handed over to our new overlords, state and federal governments. In agrarian cultures, the Lord received his subjects’ labor and his subjects received sustenance, protection and security. There were no banks, no currency, few roads, practically no local government other than the Lord himself. Even if one had currency and paid his laborers, there was nowhere to spend these wages.

All 13 colonies were original slave states. But miraculously, after thousands of years of feudal servitude, things began to change. Mankind did not suddenly become nicer. Economic changes brought on by the dynamic effects of capitalism and free markets made it possible to free people from bondage and for these people to live outside the protection of their “Lord.” Suddenly, it was possible to pay laborers a wage, giving these laborers the dignity of not only being self-sufficient but opportunities to be rewarded for enhanced productivity. It is capitalism that freed people to be their own bosses as opposed to living in grinding inescapable poverty bartering labor for security. This unwinding of bondage started in the more mercantile states in the North and was moving southward. There are lots of very interesting stories about manumission in the South, such as Robert Carter’s 1778 decision to free his 450 slaves. After the Revolution on the dawn of the 19^th century, it was clear to many slave holders that involuntary servitude was unprofitable and a dying economic model. Visitors from New England were often shocked at the shabby landscape of portions of Virginia countryside which relied on slave labor. The slave population was often described as indolent and idle, which of course makes perfect sense. Why work hard when one does not have a piece of the pie or control one’s own labor. Visitors crossing the border from the West to Soviet controlled Eastern Europe noticed a similar landscape of shabbiness.

There were many leaders in the South who wanted to end slavery, Robert E. Lee among them. The question was how? It is easy to be a no-nothing moralist 161 years after the fact, but this was not an easy question. Few people realize that one million blacks died during the Great Emancipation. For people to eat and live normal lives, there must be production. There is no production without capital. The South was utterly destroyed by the North, all wealth was wiped out, so not only did 650,000 American soldiers die and 3 times that amount crippled, but one million black people died needlessly. This was followed by 100 years of extreme poverty in portions of the South. Thank you Mr. Lincoln.

It is always about money. It is almost always economics that drive history. Don’t believe any governmental narrative, follow the money. This is as true today as it was in 1861. History teaches us what works and what doesn’t work. We are given a playbook on how to avoid the perils of the past. Like Samuel Johnson, there is nothing I hate more than ignorance, but willful ignorance is pure perniciousness. Politicizing history is not just wrong and sophomoric, but it is dangerous. Only truth can lead us to a better world.

Slavery is horrible, but without capitalism, free markets and the rule of law, it is inevitable that slavery will return (See Hayek). It is the immense wealth created from capitalism and free markets that has not just lifted people out of poverty, but lifted them out of bondage as well. The irony of our age is the ignorance of the woke mob wanting to cancel Robert E. Lee who abhorred slavery to return us to a world of slavery.

First published at realclearmarkets.com.