Ron Paul: American Civil War Was Unnecessary

TPM:

This has gotten a bit of attention already, but we wanted to flag it for you. It's Ron Paul in an interview with Tim Russert yesterday asserting that the American Civil War was unnecessary. His take: Other countries ended slavery without a civil war -- why not America? Paul theorizes that the north could have simply bought all the slaves and released them...

Read the whole story: TPM

Comments

[uheardme]

06:18 AM on 12/27/2007

Why stop at paying the southern crackers-the government should have given every slave 40 acres and a mule. I'm am so fucking serious.

[Talcott]

12:57 AM on 12/27/2007

For Russert to assert we'd still have slavery today was ridiculous. Ron Paul's point was simple... there is a better way to solve disagreemnet.

[Gary47]

12:21 AM on 12/27/2007

He should know I suppose. After all, he was there.

[HaveFun]

11:05 PM on 12/26/2007

Misanthrope2:

Do you know who the Copperheads were?

"The Copperheads were a vocal group of Democrats in the North (see also Union (American Civil War)) who opposed the American Civil War, wanting an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates. The name Copperheads was given to them by their opponents, the Republicans, because of the copper liberty-head coins they wore as badges. They were also called "Peace Democrats" and "Butternuts" (for the color of the Confederate uniforms). The most famous Copperhead was Ohio's Clement L. Vallandigham, who was a vehement opponent of President Abraham Lincoln's policies."

Northern Democrats who opposed Lincoln!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copperheads_%28politics%29

[HaveFun]

10:40 PM on 12/26/2007

Here is what Ron Paul's close friend Murray Rothbard said:

"The Civil War, in addition to its unprecedented bloodshed and devastation, was used by the triumphal and virtually one-party Republican regime to drive through its statist, formerly Whig, program: national governmental power, protective tariff, subsidies to big business, inflationary paper money, resumed control of the federal government over banking, large-scale internal improvements, high excise taxes, and, during the war, conscription and an income tax. Furthermore, the states came to lose their previous right of secession and other states’ powers as opposed to federal governmental powers.

"The Civil War and its virtual one-party system led to the permanent establishment of a neomercantilist policy of Big Government and the subsidizing of various big business interests through protective tariffs, huge land grants and other subsidies to railroads, federal excise taxation, and a federally controlled banking system. It also brought the first imposition of federal conscription and an income tax, setting dangerous precedents for the future."

This is exactly Ron Paul's position.

People, please read the man first before judging what he said at face value! Th!nk.

[leftLibertarian]

09:58 PM on 12/26/2007

Misanthrope2 - supports John Edwards who voted for the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and thinks the Pentagon should get more money.

No wonder he hates Ron Paul.

[montestruc]

09:56 PM on 12/26/2007

My take, having spent a lot of time in study of the politics of that time is than almost all response of everyone posting here and Dr, Paul's , and modern political commenter's are absurd. Nobody has a realistic feel for that time and what was and was not politically realistic then.

However -- Dr. Paul has a point, that war cost more than 600,000 American military dead, that does not count the huge number of American civilians (black and white, north and south, but much more south than north) that died as a result of that war, many during and after the war due to starvation or malnutrition related illnesses, also due to bombardment of cities and so on. FYI the US population is now more than 10 times larger than it was then. Imagine a modern war when we lose 6,000,000 military dead (the US Army is now at a strength of ~500,000) and several million civilian dead, that gives you a clue as to the cost of that war.

Also it is a fact the pre-war estimated sale value of all slaves in the south was significantly smaller than the purely financial cost of the war. That is I think Mr. Paul's point, and it is a good one, but , ,

During the war some of the slave owners on the union side (in Kentucky) were asked about a forced government purchase of slaves and the response was along the lines of you can take your offer and shove it. The point being that if the Union had tried to do that, it might well have resulted in a war as well.

However, in my humble opinion slavery was going to die even if no war and no large scale legal effort was made to end it. This is because of economics and the fact that educated labor is much better at production, but education raises the escape cost of slavery as an institution as an educated slave is going to know better how to escape and have knowledge of better opportunities.

[cognate]

09:08 PM on 12/26/2007

Ron Paul said a Civil War didn't have to be fought to abolish slavery. He pointed out that in Britain, for instance, it was abolished (in 1833) without a civil war.

So what?

Why are you upset about this? You need to believe that there are occasions and causes for which the government owns each and every one of us, body and soul?

[peskyliberal]

07:13 PM on 12/26/2007

How about this: If the South want to leaving the Union this time, let them.

[Sumocat]

05:20 PM on 12/26/2007

Unlike many of his critics, Ron Paul is anti-war, not just anti-war-with-which-I-disagree.

[Talcott]

05:09 PM on 12/26/2007

Did anyone else see the lie/smear

on dailykos....well that is to be expected

from KosHacks.

[Bushgirlsgonewild]

04:48 PM on 12/26/2007

.

As has already been posted here by other, Ron Paul has an embarrassing lack of knowledge about the Civil War - slavery was not the reason for the war.

All we need is another president who knows nothing of American history.

.

[Bushgirlsgonewild]

04:26 PM on 12/26/2007

.



Thanks Paul, I'm glad you nipped that civil war issue before it became an even bigger problem.

Next: Paul's going to work on ending the US government financing of the Transcontinental Railroad

What a loon.


.

[Qbear]

03:36 PM on 12/26/2007

Paul's revisionist HISTORY about the Civil War that Northerners could buy the slaves and set them free....still reinforces the concept BLACKS could be PURCHASED as PROPERTY. Blacks would have remained defined as 3/5ths of a person.

[ScorchedEarth]

03:31 PM on 12/26/2007

Merry X-mas to all: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/12/25/iowa-poll-says-clinton-breaking-away-from-the-pack/

Go Hillary. Win the primary and lose the general election so I can start typing 6 of the last 8 instead of 5 of the last 7.

Ron Paul? Isn't he that porn guy? Oh, that's Ron Jeremy. Two guys named Ron who have first names for last names. So confusing to a non-lawyer, non-genius like me...