Circa1865

Abraham Lincoln was a devotee of the Alexander Hamilton/Henry Clay “American System” of public debt, tariff protectionism, government subsidies and a national bank. To finance his war in 1861, Lincoln turned to an income tax, and then succumbed to printing money. Nowhere in the United States Constitution is the federal government authorized to make paper money legal tender. By 1865, the public debt was $2.6 billion, and the direct/indirect cost of Lincoln’s war would reach $8 billion by 1900.

www.Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

Public Debt, Then and Now

“Contrary to official capitalist wisdom, debt does not create economic growth. This idea is a swindle. Interest to the very rich . . . does not produce anything. It does not multiply creatively into new enterprises and jobs; it merely diverts ever-greater proportions of earning that might be fruitfully invested.

The proof is all around us. How could the vast unpayable federal debt, which absorbs much of the government’s income just for the interest bondholders, foreign and domestic, possibly be an economic stimulus? How can the immense and near universal burden of personal mortgage and credit card debt possibly indicate a healthy economy and commonwealth?

The matter is simple, obvious to anybody except a politician, a captive economist, or a media flack, and it ought to be conveyed to the people at every opportunity. Debt is killing us. Every wise man in recorded history has affirmed that debt is not a good thing. Debt can destroy a family, a government, a society.

Alexander Hamilton, an upwardly mobile immigrant bastard with a Napoleon complex, declared that “a public debt is a public blessing.” Troubled, but not surprised, Jefferson noted a connection between debt cruel taxation that undermined the independence of the citizens, warning that “we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”

Weighed down by government debt, the people would have to labor ever harder to pay the debt-holders, leaving them “no time to think, no means of calling the managers to account.” Jefferson avowed as a core principle that “the earth belongs in usufruct to the living,” but the living had no right to consume the earnings of posterity.

Antebellum statesmen like John Taylor of Caroline and John C. Calhoun and economists like William Gouge and Condy Rageut made the same case. After the War Between the States, so did William Graham Sumner, Thomas E. Watson and countless other public men and thinkers.

Republicans (and their predecessors) have always been the party of bankers and bondholders, service to the rich being for them a natural and essential function of the federal government. Opposition to the federal debt was long a plank in the Democratic platform, but Democrats today are just as guilty as the Republicans in regard to the issue.

Lip service to the virtue of “low public debt” continued until Franklin Roosevelt discovered Keynes and declared that debt is no problem “because we owe it to ourselves” – “ourselves” being a conveniently vague and collective being.

The bipartisan bailout of misbehaving bankers and brokers that we saw a few years ago, and the failure of a multitude of presidential candidates to mention the matter, is not promising.”

(It’s the Debt, Stupid, Clyde N. Wilson, Chronicles, February 2016, excerpt pg. 16)

The port city of Wilmington, North Carolina, was the most successful and lasting entry for blockade-running during the war, not falling until mid-January 1865. Though Governor Zeb Vance had created State-owned runners to bring in military supplies, the Richmond government forced private runners into limiting luxury items and carrying government cotton and goods – thus reducing their profits. The “Captain Roberts” mentioned below was in fact Augustus Charles Hobart Hampden, a British sailor of fortune who wrote “Never Caught” in 1867, a personal account of his 27 trips through the Northern blockade. The home he rented is passed on the “Confederate Wilmington” walking tour, see: www.cfhi.net.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

“Rhett Butler” and the Other Runners Speak

“Shortly after the various features of the 1864 legislation were put into effect, Captain Roberts, one of the most successful blockade-runners, ceased all activities, saying:

“The game, indeed, was fast drawing to a close. Its decline was caused in the first instance by the impolitic behavior of the people at Wilmington, who, professedly acting under orders from the Confederate Government at Richmond, pressed the blockade-runners into their service to carry cotton on Government account in such an arbitrary manner, that the profit to their owners, who had been put to enormous expense and risk in sending vessels in, was so much reduced that the ventures hardly paid.”

Another of the most famous blockade-runners – often believed to have been the real-life model for Margaret Mitchell’s character of Rhett Butler . . . was Thomas Taylor, who made twenty-eight trips through the blockade. Unlike Captain Roberts, Taylor continued to run the blockade because he had negotiated a secret profit arrangement with the Confederate Commissary-General that compensated him for the 1864 legislation.

Late in the war, despite his best efforts to the contrary. Taylor accurately predicted the downfall of the Confederacy. Writing to his superiors on January 15, 1865 [the date of the Northern attack on Fort Fisher], he said, “I never saw things more gloomy, and I think spring will finish them unless they make a change for the better.”

As he had put it, had blockade-running been encouraged, “instead of having obstacles thrown in the way, I am convinced that the conditions of affairs would have been altered very materially, and perhaps would have led to the South obtaining what it had shed so much blood to gain, viz., its independence.”

It appears that the blockade-runners could adjust to the advances of the Union blockade, but not to the economic constraints of the Confederate legislation. As Captain Roberts explained, “the enterprise had lost much of its charm; for, unromantic as it may seem, much of the charm consisted in money-making.”

Economic motives, however much we support or reject them ethically, morally, or philosophically, appear to have determined the outcome for the lifeline of the Confederacy.”

(Tariffs, Blockades and Inflation, the Economics of the Civil War; Mark Thornton and Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., Scholarly Resources Books, 2004, excerpts, pp. 53-54)

The Northern failure at Ream’s Station in late August, 1864 took a personal toll on Northern General Winfield S. Hancock, whose men panicked under the assault by A.P. Hill and Henry Heth. By the end of the day, triumphant Southern troops took captured 12 stands of enemy colors, 9 cannon, 3,100 small arms, and sent Hancock’s two divisions fleeing northward.  It was Northern Gen. Nelson Miles who later manacled President Jefferson Davis at Fortress Monroe, by order of Lincoln’s Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana, a confidante of Karl Marx.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

Union Panic Fever at Ream’s Station

“Major-General Henry Heth arrived on the field with two fresh Confederate brigades and assumed tactical control of the operation. He conferred briefly with the stricken [Gen. A.P.] Hill, who told him that he “must carry the position.” With Heth came Colonel William J. Pegram and twelve artillery pieces. While Pegram arranged his cannon to bombard the Federals, Heth deployed a three-brigade assault force aimed at the northwest corner of the enemy perimeter. Pegram opened fire at 5:00 P.M.

Henry Heth moved to signal the advance by calling for a regimental flag to be brought to him. The standard of the 26^th North Carolina arrived, along with its young color-bearer. Heth asked for the flag, but the color-bearer insisted on carrying it himself. Heth smiled and took the soldier by his arm. “Come on then, we will carry the colors together,” he said.  This was the signal to begin the third assault on Reams Station.

The [Southerners] were blasted from the moment they came into view, and the heavy fire was kept up as the leading Rebel elements scattered the Federal pickets . . . A few more minutes of this punishment, [Gen.] Nelson Miles thought, and the [Confederates] would have to withdraw.

Suddenly, three of his regiments near the northwest angle panicked, and their once neat battle lines dissolved into a welter of fleeing men. At the same moment, triumphant [Southern] soldiers began to clamber over the breastworks. Other units along the upper western section of the [federal] line began to break apart. “This was the turning point of the fight,” one of the frightened Federals later recalled, “and here we failed.”

Rebel rifle fire ripped into the battery covering the gap . . . [and the enemy cannons were captured].  A New York battery posted [nearby] twisted its gun around to fire into the lost lines even as the regiments supporting it began to catch the panic fever.  Once their infantry help fled, the gunners had to run as well, leaving their pieces for the enemy.

The Union lines below the Depot Road gave way at about the same time Miles counterattacked . . . Union cannoneers . . . fought their guns to the last, then had to leave them behind as they raced for cover; many of the horses whose task it was to pull the guns out of harm’s way had become early victims of [Southern] sharpshooters.

[With Gen. Wade] Hampton’s cavalrymen and horse batteries pressing the southern face of Hancock’s line, some of the [federals] were in fact getting hit from three sides. Once the western face of the perimeter collapsed, dismounted Confederate troopers poured into [Hancock’s] earthworks.

The possibility of encirclement decided the matter: at 8:00 P.M., [Northern Gen. Winfield S.] Hancock issued orders to withdraw.  By 9:00 P.M., the Federals had disengaged and pulled back to the east. In the confusion of this night movement, Hancock’s devoted adjutant and postwar biographer, Francis Walker, was captured when he rode into an enemy picket line.

It had been a hard-won victory for Confederate arms, so much so that A.P. Hill decided not to pursue Hancock’s retreating corps. His troops, and Hampton’s, were kept busy rounding up prisoners and captured weapons. Then nature closed the scene with some artillery of its own: a heavy thunderstorm rumbled across Reams Station, bringing vivid flashes of light in the heavens along with a pelting rain that washed over the weary, wounded and dead alike.”

(The Last Citadel, Petersburg, Virginia, June 1864-April 1865, Noah Andre Trudeau, Little, Brown and Company, 1991, excerpts pp. 186-189)

April, 1865 witnessed the victory of Northern industrial capitalism over the conservative, agrarian South – no longer could Southern statesmen restrain the North in the halls of Congress. Post-1865 America saw the rise of corporations, the completion of Manifest Destiny and near-extermination of the Indians, and the gilded age of “evil robber barons.”

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

Unproductive Republican Economic Policies

“Historians have tended to treat the Civil War as a boon to industry and the American economy. Thomas C. Cochrane cites several prominent historians . . . who variously praised the impact of the conflict on wartime production and its stimulating effect on postwar economic and industrial development.

Cochrane . . . examined statistical data on industrial production and found that, in general, there was not a strong case for a positive impact and that the war had a retarding effect on industry and the economy. Cochrane also found little support for the claims of beneficial effects of the Civil War on postwar development. He concludes with this speculation:

“From most standpoints the Civil War was a national disaster, but Americans like to see their history in terms of optimism and progress. Perhaps the war was put in a perspective suited to the culture by seeing it as good because in addition to achieving freedom for the Negro it brought about industrial progress.”

[Charles and Mary] Beard’s claim that the Civil War was a spur to industry and the rise of the American economy is based on the lasses-faire philosophy of the Republican Party and its success in implementing its major policy goals, such as subsidies to the intercontinental railroads, the establishment of a national currency and the protective tariff.

The Republican’s economic philosophy was not truly laissez-fair. In fact, their policy agenda was the opposite . . . in that it advocated special treatment for big business and a much larger role for the federal government. This can be seen in Republican policies to subsidize railroads, provide protective tariffs [for select private industries], and increase government debt and government control over money and banking as well as in their attitude toward labor.

Their policies [of tariffs and subsidies] . . . are now considered economically wasteful . . . and considered nothing more than special interests seeking a handout from the taxpayer through the government. [That Republican policies were productive] ignores the negative effects on the agriculture, service and cultural sectors. The Republicans’ policy would be better labelled as mercantilist in that it facilitated rent-seeking behavior.

Capital diverted to railroad building would surely have been put to good use elsewhere in the economy . . . [and] Moreover, had railroads not been highly subsidized, a better built, lower cost, and more timely system could have been put in place.

Tariffs were a centerpiece of Republican policy. They reversed a relatively free-trade policy . . . [and] protectionism forced consumers to pay higher prices for both imported and domestically produced goods protected by the tariff – that is, they purchased fewer of these products, used less desirable substitutes, and had a lower standard of living.

On net, the losses to consumers and the overall economy are greater than the gains to the protected producers and the tax revenue that accrues to the government.”

(Tariffs, Blockades and Inflation, the Economics of the Civil War; Mark Thornton and Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., Scholarly Resources Books, 2004, excerpts, pp. 84-87)

Christmas Must Proceed in 1864

“Varina Howell Davis, Mississippi-born wife of the Southern president declared, “That Christmas season was ushered in under the thickest clouds; every one felt the cataclysm which impended, but the rosy, expectant faces of our little children were a constant reminder that self-sacrifice must be the personal offering of each member of the family.”

Because of the expense involved in keeping them up, Mr.. Davis had recently sold her carriage and horses. A warm-spirited Confederate bought them back and sent them to her. Now she planned to dispose of one of her best satin dresses to obtain funds; with Christmas on the way, the children had high expectations, and she would use all possible makeshifts in an effort to fulfill them.

The Richmond housewives could find no currants, raisins, or other vital ingredients for old Virginia mincemeat pie. But, Mrs. Davis went on, the young considered at least one slice their right, “and the price of indigestion…a debt of honor due from them to the season’s exactions.”

Despite the war, apple trees still bore fruit; with these as a base, she and the other women of the city would utilize any other fruit that came to hand. A little cider and some salt were obtained, as was brandy, though its usual price was a hundred dollars a bottle in inflated Confederate currency.

As for eggnog, the Negro stable attendant, who brought in “the back log, our substitute for the Yule log,” said he did not know how they would “git along without no eggnog. Ef it’s only a little wineglass.” Plans progressed for a quiet home Christmas when unexpected word arrived: The orphans at the Episcopal home had been promised a tree and toys, cake and candy, plus a good prize for the best-behaved girl, and something had to be done about that.

Something was done. With Mrs. Davis’s help, a committee of women was set up and the members repaired to their children’s old toy collections to salvage dolls without eyes, monkeys that had lost their squeak, three-legged and even two-legged horses. They fixed and painted everything, plumping out rag dolls and putting new faces on them, adding fresh tails to feathered chickens and parrots.

The Davis’s invited a group of young friends on Christmas Eve to help make candle molds and string popcorn and apples for the tree; Mr. Pizzini, the confectioner, contributed simple candies. For cornucopias and other ornamentation the Davis’s guests used colored papers, bright pictures from old books, bits of silk out of trunks. All in all, the Christmas Eve of 1864 was far from unsatisfactory. When the small supply of eggnog went around, the eldest Davis boy assured his father: “Now I just know this is Christmas.”

(The Southern Christmas Book, Harnett T. Kane, David McKay Company, 1958, pp. 208-210)

Christmas on the Plantation

“No sooner was the harvest over, than preparations for Christmas began. Whole calves were barbequed, pigs roasted, while wild game and venison were hunted. For days ahead there was much cooking of plum pudding, fruit cakes, Sally White cakes, pies and all sorts of good things, (they make your mouth water to think of them). The big Yule log was brought in from the swamp the day before Christmas, where it had been soaking for weeks, the alert darkies knowing that as long as it burned in the “great house” they would stop working.

The mansion was elaborately dressed with evergreens, while branches of dried cedar dried hydrangea blooms were powdered with flour, making feathery white blossoms, as if in summer time. The holly tree was ornamented with long strings of popped corn, strung by the white and colored children.

Early Christmas morning the “Great House” was awakened by the singing of the darkies and voices calling out – “Ch’mas gif’, master, “Ch’mas gif”, mistress.” On the great tree were gifts for everyone on the plantation. In the low country of the South the Negroes dressed themselves as clowns, grotesque costumes (being known as “John Kunners”) and marched around ringing bells, as the danced, singing – “Ch’mas comes but once a year, hurrah Johnnie Kuner – give poor [Negro] one more cent, hurrah John Kunner.” With the passing of their hats, pennies were dropped by the “white folks.”

Words fail to express the Christmas dinner of the old plantation. In front of “Marster” was a roast pig (red apple in his mouth) or the largest gobbler. Innumerable were the desserts or sweet – syllabub, custard, trifle, wine jelly, cocoanut and lemon puddings, mince pies, every kind of cake, and Snow Balls especially for the children.

With the dinner, wines were served, made from the plantation scuppernong, James or Catawba grapes, or from the luscious blackberry. In the quarters was served a wonderful repast to the entire colored population, and their gayeties were shown in dancing the “double shuffle,” the “break down,” the “chicken in the bread tray,” and the “pigeon wing,” followed by the “cake walk.” Up in the Mansion the family and guests probably engaged in the Virginia Reel or other forms of dancing.

Until New Years’ Day, the festivities would continue, a party at every plantation within riding distance, each house overflowing with merriment. A plantation Christmas would not be complete without a fox hunt, for “to ride with the hounds” was one of the accomplishments necessary to the planter and his sons.

Space forbids further description of the happiness of life on an antebellum plantation in the South, but many of our Southern writers have given indelible pictures of the bond between master and slave, which was unique, will go down as an example of understanding affection. Without trying to condone the rare case of unkindness from planters toward their slaves, on the whole they were well treated and the hearts of the two races were closely knit in the old plantation system.

There was a personal interest in the heart of the planter and his family for these dusky folks who belonged to them. And they had a pride in their slaves that was reciprocated by them, who felt that their “White Folks” were better than any others.

In writing of the race problem (after the Sixties) Henry W. Grady of Georgia said: “As I recall my old plantation home, the spirit of my old Black Mammy from her home above the skies, looks down to bless me, and through the tumult of the night the sweet music of her crooning, as she held me in her arms and lead me smiling to sleep.” One writer says: “The old plantation life is gone, but in that era of the Old South were found the very finest and highest types of loyalty and of patriotism that America will ever know.”

(Plantation Life in the Old South (excerpt), Lucy London Anderson, The Southern Magazine, May 1934, page 10)

Though Northern General David Birney was born in Alabama, his Kentucky abolitionist father moved the family to Philadelphia where he was educated and indoctrinated. A thoroughly political general who rose through the ranks by self-promotion and connections, his career was dotted with discipline issues and courts martial. He was described as a “pale, Puritanical figure, with a demeanor of unmovable coldness . . .” He ordered the indiscriminate bombardment of women, children and old men in mid-1864 Petersburg, which offered no military targets.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

Our Inhuman Foe

“The war against the civilian population of the Cockade City began in earnest on June 16. The 10^th Massachusetts Battery took an advanced position near the Hare House Hill, from which, one artilleryman later recalled, the “spires of Petersburg were now in full view, though distant, perhaps, two miles.”

Two days of bitter fighting remained before the Union leaders would admit failure in their attempt to storm Petersburg, but the targeting of noncombatants did not wait that long. “By order of Gen. Birney we gave our pieces ample elevation and fired the first shots known to have been thrown into the city,” cannoneer John D. Billings noted.

“What a night was the last,” Fanny Waddell wrote the next morning. “Our inhuman foe without a single warning opened their guns upon us, shelling a city full of defenseless women, children and old men.” The bombardment that began on June 16 lasted well into the early hours of June 17.

“I lay quietly until nearly one o’clock listening the bursting of the shells when one exploded so near that the light flashed in my face,” Mrs. Waddell recollected. Ah! The bitterness of that night will never pass from our hearts and memories.”

The correspondent for the Savannah Republican reported on June 19 that a “number of shells have exploded in the streets [of Petersburg], but thus far only eleven persons have been hurt, including one old Negro woman killed.”

An officer visiting Petersburg shortly after this report was filed thought that everything seemed “exceedingly depressing. The streets were almost deserted, and the destructive work of the shells was visible on every hand. Here a chimney was knocked off, here a handsome residence was deserted, with great rents in its walls, and the windows shattered by explosion; here stood a church tower mutilated, the church yard filled with new-made graves.”

Large numbers of civilians fled the Petersburg battle zone within days of Grant’s approach. James Albright, a Virginia artilleryman, wrote in his diary on June 20, “The vandals are still throwing shells into the city, and it is very distressing to see the poor women and children leaving. It is hard on all; but to see the poor women with the children on one arm and their little budgets on the other seeking a safe place – is enough to move the hardest heart.”

The civilian exodus was accelerated by rumors that the Yankees planned to celebrate the Fourth of July with “a furious bombardment of the City.” Another Petersburg diarist noted that during one bombardment “pieces of shell [were] rattling like hail about our house.” There were so many burning structures that one Southern artilleryman angrily declared that the “Yankees appear[ed] to be throwing incendiary shells into the city – as some five buildings were on fire at the same time.”

At least one Union battery did use Petersburg to test its homemade incendiary shells. These were concocted by Major Jacob Roemer and thrown into the city in late July, doing “a great deal of damage there.” Another heavy Union bombardment on July 28 started a number of blazes, all noted by Union observers.

To add to the fire hazard, the Union artillery would concentrate its shelling on the burning structures, so that the air around the men battling the flames would be filled with a “perfect storm of shot and shell.”

(The Last Citadel, Petersburg, Virginia, June 1864-April 1865, Noah Andre Trudeau, Little, Brown and Company, 1991, excerpts pp. 91-92; 95-96)

Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts spoke the following in 1811 and was keenly aware of the States being sovereign and federated in a voluntary political Union that did not authorize adding territory to it. His State opposed the War of 1812 and refused troops while trading with the enemy – the latter it had done in 1759 when British Gen. James Wolfe confronted the French on the Plains of Abraham. Like other Americans of the antebellum era, Quincy found his own native State to be his home and country.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

Josiah Quincy, States-Rights Yankee

“Mr. Speaker, The bill, which is now proposed to be passed [to form Louisiana into a State], has this assumed principle for its basis: that the three branches of this national government, without recurring to conventions of the people, in the States, or to the legislatures of the States, are authorized to admit new partners to a share of the political power, in countries out of the original limits of the United States.

Now, this assumed principle, I maintain to be altogether without any sanction in the constitution. I declare it to be a manifest and atrocious usurpation of power; of a nature, dissolving, according to undeniable principles of moral law, the obligations of our national compact; and leading to all the awful consequences, which flow from such a state of things . . .

Sir, what is this power, we propose now to usurp?

Nothing less than a power, changing all the proportions of the weight and influence, possessed by the potent sovereignties composing this Union. A stranger is to be introduced to an equal share, without their consent. Upon a principle, pretended to be deduced from the constitution, this government, after this bill passes, may and will multiply foreign partners in power, at its own mere motion; at its irresponsible pleasure; in other words, as local interests, party passions, or ambitious views may suggest . . . This is not so much a question, concerning the exercise of sovereignty, as it is who shall be sovereign.

[Is] there a moral principle of public law better settled, or more conformable to the plainest suggestions of reason, than that the violation of a contract by one of the parties may be considered as exempting the others from its obligations?

Do you suppose the people of the Northern and Atlantic States will, or ought to look on with patience and see representatives and senators from the Red River and Missouri, pouring themselves upon this and the other floor, managing the concerns of a seaboard fifteen hundred miles, at least, from their residence?

It is the part of a wise man to foresee danger and to hide himself. This great usurpation, which creeps into this House, under the plausible appearance to giving content to that important point, New Orleans; starts up a gigantic power to control the nation.

With respect to this love of our union . . . It grows out of the affections; and has not, and cannot be made to have, anything universal in its nature. Sir, I confess it, the first public love of my heart is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There is my fireside; there are the tombs of my ancestors. The love of this union grows out of this attachment to my native soil, and is rooted in it.

I cherish it, because it affords the best external hope of her peace, her prosperity, her independence. The bill, if it passes, is the death blow to the Constitution. It may, afterwards, linger; but lingering, its fate will, at no distant period, be consummated.”

(Speech on the Passage of the Bill to Enable the People of the Territory of Orleans to Form a Constitution and State Government, Josiah Quincy, January 14, 1811; American History Told by Contemporaries, Volume III, Albert Bushnell Hart, editor, Macmillan Company, 1901, pp. 410-414)

The Ku Klux Klan had two reincarnations since being organized after the War. The W.J. Simmons Klan of 1915 was a nativist organization concerned about the influx on European immigrants and their effect upon American institutions; the most recent Klan of few numbers and many government informants has little if any resemblance to the original. The 1915 Klan can be compared to the strongly anti-Catholic Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s – many of whose members joined Lincoln’s sectional Republican Party.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

Stealing the Name of the Klan

“[An] event that may surprise many persons who think of the Ku Klux Klan as a bigoted organization opposed to Catholics, Jews and Negroes. They forget that a generation earlier there was another Klan, from which the Klan of the present century stole the name, and that the objective of the earlier Klan, while quite without sanction of law, were scarcely comparable.

Bernard and [brother] Hartwig were rummaging in their attic at Camden. Opening an old trunk they found the regalia of a Knight of the Ku Klux Klan. It belonged to their father, in whose veins according to family records, flowed nothing but Jewish blood.

Their mother, who had followed the boys up the attic steps to see what they were doing, froze with fear when she saw them unearth the regalia. Dr. Baruch would certainly pay with his life if his membership in the Klan should be disclosed. She swore them to secrecy, and, as usual, they obeyed her commands.

In telling this story, years later, Baruch remarked that, far as he had ever heard, no member of the Klan was ever betrayed. Who were members of that organization of Reconstruction days was one of the best kept secrets in all history.”

(Bernard Baruch, Park Bench Statesman, Carter Field, Whittlesey House, 1944, pp. 2-3)

Like Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations — the victors imposing their order on defeated and newly-created ethnic “nations” in a utopian fashion — the later United Nations goal was to create the same and prevent future wars. Wilson naively believed that the League could prevent unethical behavior by states and use force to control them which did nothing but spark future wars. Today, formerly Christian nations in Europe have shed their historical identities to become merely market collectives with no borders, and populations of multi-ethnic tribes warring against each other.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com

Today’s Tower of Babel

“[Western] nations are obviously evolving into godless societies; they hail not the sovereignty of God but of man, and claim that religious beliefs are essentially detrimental to peace. But it takes only common sense to realize that atheism goes hand in hand with unfettered individualism.

Modern times are times of hostility to religion; it is no happenstance that they have also seen the birth of radical individual freedom. Epicurus long ago taught that there could be no society among men but that which obtains among small circles of friends; it is no happenstance that he also taught that there are no gods.

Inasmuch as a nation is a cohesive body whose members are the individual citizens, it needs some sort of cementing mortar to bridge the gap that the freedom of each unavoidably creates between them, and all the more as such freedom becomes absolute. Building such a bridge presupposes that all citizens participate in something . . . [that] transcends them all . . . binding them without oppressing them.

And since this is the very definition of a religious belief, it must be concluded that no nation exists that is not upheld by some religious faith. Nations are terrestrial vessels anchored in the skies.

But Europe used to believe in a religion that (even though the passions of men led them too often to ignore it) preached a love of one’s neighbor that did not imply hatred of foreigners. Indeed, classic orthodox Christianity always taught men to love their own countries together with all men, irrespective of their nationalities. But then it meant that, just as is the case for individuals, nations – though distinct entities – felt they were parts of the same world; not a political one, since they all retained some sort of independence, but a spiritual one, whose unity was manifested at the time by their common compliance with one spiritual authority.

Today, we have something paradoxically called the United Nations, whose more or less goal is to unite mankind in a worldwide society built on the ruins of all nations. It is our Tower of Babel.”

(The Agony of Nations in the West, Claude Polin, Chronicles, February 2016, excerpts, pg. 13)