The Power of Lies
How History Is Falsified
By Paul Craig Roberts
April 13, 2015 "ICH"
- It is one of history’s ironies that the Lincoln Memorial is a sacred space for
the Civil Rights Movement and the site of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream”
speech.Lincoln did not think blacks were the equals of
whites. Lincoln’s plan was to send the blacks in America back to Africa, and if
he had not been assassinated, returning blacks to Africa would likely have been
his post-war policy.
As Thomas DiLorenzo and a number of non-court historians have
conclusively established, Lincoln did not invade the Confederacy in order to
free the slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation did not occur until 1863 when
opposition in the North to the war was rising despite Lincoln’s police state
measures to silence opponents and newspapers. The Emancipation Proclamation was
a war measure issued under Lincoln’s war powers. The proclamation provided for
the emancipated slaves to be enrolled in the Union army replenishing its losses.
It was also hoped that the proclamation would spread slave revolts in the South
while southern white men were away at war and draw soldiers away from the fronts
in order to protect their women and children. The intent was to hasten the
defeat of the South before political opposition to Lincoln in the North grew
stronger.
The Lincoln Memorial was built not because Lincoln “freed the
slaves,” but because Lincoln saved the empire. As the Savior of the Empire, had
Lincoln not been assassinated, he could have become emperor for life.
As Professor Thomas DiLorenzo writes: “Lincoln spent his
entire political career attempting to use the powers of the state for the
benefit of the moneyed corporate elite (the ‘one-percenters’ of his day), first
in Illinois, and then in the North in general, through protectionist tariffs,
corporate welfare for road, canal, and railroad corporations, and a national
bank controlled by politicians like himself to fund it all.”
Lincoln was a man of empire. As soon as the South was
conquered, ravaged, and looted, his collection of war criminal generals, such as
Sherman and Sheridan, set about exterminating the Plains Indians in one of the
worst acts of genocide in human history. Even today Israeli Zionists point to
Washington’s extermination of the Plains Indians as the model for Israel’s theft
of Palestine.
The War of Northern Aggression was about tariffs and northern
economic imperialism. The North was protectionist. The South was free trade. The
North wanted to finance its economic development by forcing the South to pay
higher prices for manufactured goods. The North passed the Morrill Tariff which
more than doubled the tariff rate to 32.6% and provided for a further hike to
47%. The tariff diverted the South’s profits on its agricultural exports to the
coffers of Northern industrialists and manufacturers. The tariff was designed to
redirect the South’s expenditures on manufactured goods from England to the
higher cost goods produced in the North.
This is why the South left the union, a right of
self-determination under the Constitution.
The
purpose of Lincoln’s war was to save the empire, not to abolish slavery. In
his first inaugural address Lincoln “made an ironclad defense of slavery.” His
purpose was to keep the South in the Empire despite the Morrill Tariff. As for
slavery, Lincoln said: “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere
with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have
no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” This position, Lincoln
reminded his audience, was part of the 1860 Republican Party platform. Lincoln
also offered his support for the strong enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act,
which required Northerners to hunt down and return runaway slaves, and he gave
his support to the Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, already passed by
Northern votes in the House and Senate, that prohibited any federal interference
with slavery. For Lincoln and his allies, the empire was far more important than
slaves.
DiLorenzo explains what the deal was that Lincoln offered to
the South. However, just as empire was more important to the North than slavery,
for the South avoiding large taxes on manufactured goods, in effect a tax on
Southern agricultural profits, was more important than northern guarantees for
slavery.
If you want to dislodge your brainwashing about the War of
Northern Aggression, read DiLorenzo’s books,
The Real Lincoln, and
Lincoln Unmasked.
The so-called Civil War was not a civil war. In a civil war,
both sides are fighting for control of the government. The South was not
fighting for control of the federal government. The South seceded and the North
refused to let the South go.
The reason I am writing about this is to illustrate how
history is falsified in behalf of agendas. I am all for civil rights and
participated in the movement while a college student. What makes me
uncomfortable is the transformation of Lincoln, a tyrant who was an agent for
the One Percent and was willing to destroy any and every thing in behalf of
empire, into a civil rights hero. Who will be next? Hitler? Stalin? Mao? George
W. Bush? Obama? John Yoo? If Lincoln can be a civil rights hero, so can be
torturers. Those who murder in Washington’s wars women and children can be
turned into defenders of women’s rights and child advocates. And probably they
will be.
This is the twisted perverted world in which we live. Vladimir
Putin, President of Russia, is confronted with Washington’s overthrow of the
elected government in Ukraine, a Russian ally and for centuries a part of Russia
itself, while Putin is falsely accused of invading Ukraine. China is accused by
Washington as a violator of human rights while Washington murders more civilians
in the 21st century than every other country combined.
Everywhere in the West monstrous lies stand unchallenged. The
lies are institutionalized in history books, course curriculums, policy
statements, movements and causes, and in historical memory.
America will be hard pressed to survive the lies that it
lives.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of
the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News
Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His
internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are
The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West
and
How America Was Lost.