American Civil War: The battle between American Nationalists and the British Free Trade Radicals
You have to understand history to understand the current geo political patterns and where we are ultimately headed. A ready mix of Geo Politics & Geo Economics is essential for in-depth analysis. It is one thing to read history, events as a story and totally another thing to co-relate and draw up the patterns which requires analytical ability. Most falter on this aspect. Having read extensively recently on the events around the American Civil War, the present blog is to give a summary of geo economic tug of war between the American nationalists lead by Abraham Lincoln in the Republican Party and the British agents the American political system across party that sought to convert America into appendage of the British banking oligarchical elite.
When Abraham Lincoln entered office in March of 1861, the Civil War was weeks away. Four southern states had seceded from the Union immediately after the announcement of Lincoln’s victory in the October 1860 election; the rest were to follow in rapid succession. The immediate cause of the Civil War was the firing on Fort Sumter, a Federal fort in South Carolina, by the Confederate insurrectionists. But what drove the North and the South to war was the British conspiracy to overthrow the American System in favor of free trade policies.
The new Lincoln Administration found the United States Treasury virtually bankrupt. The actions taken by Andrew Jackson against the National Bank had set the standard for federal nonintervention into the currency and banking affairs of the nation, which was followed by subsequent Presidents in deference to states rights. Jackson’s dismantling of “Biddle’s Bank” was followed by the 1846 passage of the Independent Treasury Act by the “free trade” Democrats. The act prevented the U.S. government from regulating the affairs of the banks and stipulated that the government should be treated like any other depositor.
It was Great Britain’s intent to gain full financial control over not only the southern Confederacy, but the North. Anyone familiar with the history of British financial manipulation of foreign wars knows that the ABCs of counterinsurgency entail such control of the purse strings of all warring parties as to predetermine the outcome of the battle or the war itself. The following brief quote from one of Lincoln’s favorite “stump” speeches should firmly establish Lincoln as a self-conscious Whig humanist:
“Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improves his workmanship. This improvement he effects by Discoveries and Inventions.”
From Britain, August Belmont, then meeting with the Rothschild bankers, and Thurlow Weed dispatched a plethora of protesting messages to Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward. At a meeting arranged by the Rothschilds with Prime Minister Palmerston and Chancellor of the Exchequer Wil- liam E. Gladstone, Belmont was questioned as to the state of the American nation’s defenses and the popular attitude toward England. Palmerston certainly had his reasons for “disliking” the tariff and the rest of American System policy being implemented. Such a policy on the part of the United States was once again bringing to the fore various international currents which had almost succeeded in destroying British domination at the time of the American Revolution.
Both Germany and Russia began adopting protective sys- tems. The case of Russia is particularly important because it illustrates the point that the protective policy of the U.S. was absolutely not to be equated with isolationism. Leading U.S. protectionists stated time and again that their aim was to enable the United States to become strong enough to rid the world of the odious British System once and for all. During the early part of the Lincoln Administration, U.S. exported to Russia both the blueprints and the technicians for construction of American ironclad ships which provided basis for the modernization of the Russian navy & the brute force development of Russia’s iron industry. It was Henry Carey who, by stating the Tribune’s editorial policy, was responsible in 1856 for U.S. diplomatic support of Russia against England during the Crimean War.
Frantic over the American System financial policy adopted by the U.S. government, the British government shifted the emphasis of its policy away from the “hard line” of Palmerston, who had intended to go to war against the Union on the side of the South. The network of free-trade radicals in the U.S. were largely tied to East Coast shipping and banking interests, and to New England textile manufacturers and export-import bankers. The merchants and bankers depended largely on England, the export of cotton and other unfinished raw materials, and the import of finished goods from Britain. They would, on eco- nomic matters, support the interests of Britain against the United States. Their party loyalties were largely to the Democratic Party, particularly after Andrew Jackson’s election to the presidency.
This is the network which was employed in the operation to destabilize Lincoln’s government, utilizing well-tested British counterinsurgency methods and underwritten by Britain. British financial warfare against the United States followed the conclusion of the Civil War, and assassination was a strategic part of this renewed assault. Lincoln’s third Treasury Secretary, actually initiated the attack on the American System with an open letter to Henry Carey which was published in the Chicago Tribune just three days before Lincoln’s death. He advocated a reduction of the tariff, an immediate return to specie [gold] payments, and a contraction of the currency. The article was published in London Times.
Lincoln chastised McCulloch for the article. Three days later the President was assassinated; a virtual coup d’e ́tat within the executive branch of the government had been perpetrated by the British. Almost the entire Johnson Cabinet after Lincoln Assassination were either outright British agents or corrupted by British ideology: the President, Secretary of War Stanton, Secretary of State Seward, and Secretary of the Treasury McCulloch. It would be slightly simplified, but essentially correct to say that there never was such a thing as a Civil War in the United States.
The War Between the States that ravaged this country between 1861 and 1865 was the second military phase of the political battle which raged between Britain and the United States from the time a formal ceasefire was concluded at Yorktown in 1781. The Republican Party of Lincoln was responsible for building the labor industry alliance which won the war. That party’s program has a surprisingly familiar ring to those fighting against the stagnation of the American and world economy under the British System today. The key features were credits for rapid industrialization and realization of new technologies, debt moratoria on certain holdings that were crippling production, and measures to politically sever the U.S. credit generating mechanisms from British control.
The party of Lincoln succeeded in launching the United States of America as the greatest industrial power on earth but the British were not brought to the ground. Through assassinations, divide-and-conquer tactics, and, most importantly, the deceptive offer of an “Anglo-American Imperial Alliance,” the British oligarchs re-established an ever tightening stranglehold over the U.S. economy and political system. Americans’ perception of their national interest was again viciously distorted and the war against the British System of austerity, deindustrialization, and mutually destructive class warfare conveniently forgotten.
Thus American Civil War nothing but a tug of war between American Nationalists & British Agents/Banking Oligarchs i.e. American System Vs British System of Free Trade. This fight of free trade radicals serving the interest Anglo-American Establishment vs American interests per se still continue. The Trumpian GOP is in a way symptomatic of that tussle however the level of control the deep state has over American banking & debt is far higher now. The underwriting of American empire born of war & peace study post 1945-48 resulted in Bretten woods conference leading to establishment of IMF, World Bank, US $ as Reserve Currency which went various transformation from a gold backed one to a Petro Dollar one under Nixon.
I have explained this #PaxAmericana in my book #TheGreatReset (2022) ! In effect the American empire today & Dollar hegemony is underwritten by trade deficits. If America were to undo that as Trump wanted, will destroy its Dollar Hegemony and along with it destroy American Empire. The conflict is thus between American nationalist who are ready to foresake American empire in favour of great industrialized nation as Lincoln had imagined. Other side are globalists who prefer an indebted American with its military & NATO serving the military of the Oligarchs. At some point of time this problem would have to resolve but the issue is; is China ready !? Chinese economy by itself on the verge of imploding. The only way globalist elite can hit a reset button is through a major conflict & chaos through a new world order can be resurrected. In the next part of the blog i would be dealing with another aspect of the American civil war and how these patterns define the Geop-Politics today.