Slavery, money and Independence

Peter Keusgen

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

This was the opening of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

It was a lie.

Today I'd like to give you a bit of history from before the US civil war dating back 30 years before the civil war to the Nullification crisis. This will give you a bit of an insight into the background of the civil war and how the US government deals with problems. This is still relevant today. I'd like to start with trade tariffs. Are you aware of the Boston Tea Party?

The Boston Tea Party was a key event leading up to the US revolution because of taxes imposed by the British government on imported tea and the British government wasn't adhering to their own laws, and civil war erupted two years later in 1773.

Move forward sixty years to 1828, and the US government did precisely the same thing. To protect industries in the north, the US government introduced import taxes on shipments from Europe.

This may have been good for some industries, but it was devastating for the south whose economies depended on international trade. In addition, the government wasn't enforcing laws enshrined in the constitution. Specifically, the fugitive slave clause.

But two years later, two men from South Carolina, Andrew Jackson and John Calhoun became president and vice president. Surprisingly, though, Andrew Jackson didn't revoke the tariff law and didn't enforce the slave law.

One of the main problems was that the president Andrew Jackson openly split with his vice president John Calhoun, from South Carolina, who became the first Vice President to resign from office.

Carolina decided to secede from the union and issued the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. Or, the Nullification Crisis. South Carolina immediately became a tax free port, which meant the federal government wasn't collecting taxes. That gave a major boost to South Carolina, and left Andrew Jackson with a major problem: How to prevent South Carolina from leaving the union, and how to get his money.

You can imagine his decision. He got congress to authorize him to use force. South Carolina had no choice, but to revoke the Declaration of immediate causes. But the resentment remains and grew over the next 30 years.

Fast forward 30 years, and the same two issues came up again. This time with the new president, and trade tariffs.

This time, though, the president wasn't a rich slave owner. This was Abraham Lincoln and he planned to free the slaves. This, as I pointed out, was unconstitutional and illegal. It may have been right, but it was unconstitutional. So on top of unfair trade tariffs, South Carolina was going to lose it's cheap labor. And remember, back then there weren't a lot of illegal Mexicans around to do the work.

Again, South Carolina decided to secede from the union. And the government of Abraham Lincoln did precisely the same thing. Send in the ships. But this time, a bunch of other states joined South Carolina, and the country was plunged into civil war. And the rest, of course, is history. So that's one quick blink of history known as the Nullification crisis. As you've seen, the background to the civil war was more than just slavery, and speeches by politicians aren't necessarily based on fact.

So what can we learn from this?

I guess, first, that when it comes to money, the government wants to get its hands on it.

Second, that governments willignore the constitution if it suits their purposes.

Third, that the US government in particular tends to consider the use of force the most useful.

And while this is an historical even, I'm sure you can see how these lessons from history are relevant today not just in the US, but in Thailand, Australia, Europe, and any other country where the government has too much power.

Slavery, money and Independence