Pandora's Box
By Alex Christopher
Little has been published about the early life of Abraham Lincoln. However, during a search of some old property records and will in a small courthouse in central North Carolina, Alex Christopher the author of "Pandora's Box", found the will of one A.A. Springs in an old will book dated around 1840. Upon reading the will he was shocked and amazed at the secret it disclosed. But the fact is that wills, even though classified as public records the same as property and corporation records, are rarely combed through as he was doing. These documents can hold dark secrets hidden from public view and never uncovered because few research these old records. Thus secrets are hidden in public view so that when accused of concealing the records, bureaucracy can reply "It was on public record in plan view for any and all to find."
The will of the late A.A. Springs lists his property and to whom the beneficiaries who included his children. Mr. Christopher and others were looking to find what railroads and banks this man might have owned and left to his son Leroy Springs. He didn't find anything like that, but he did find the prize of the century. On the bottom of page three of four pages was a paragraph where the father, A.A. Springs, left to his son an enormous amount of land in the state of Alabama which is now known as Huntsville, Alabama. At first Mr. Christopher and his colleagues could not believe what their eyes, because the name of his son was "ABRAHAM LINCOLN"!
This new information added to what they had already learned about the Springs, whose real name was Springstein, was one more twist to this already enigmatic family. This unexpected knowledge about Lincoln set their hearts on fire to see what further secrets this new lead might disclose. Because everything they had so far found in the railroad and banking saga had been really mind-opening, they figured this one would be the same. So they investigated the local archives and historical records on families and found a reference to one Abraham Lincoln in a published genealogy of a Carolina family by the name of McAdden. This genealogy was a limited edition of the type once found in the public libraries. The section on Lincoln resembled the following form of words:
"In the late spring of the year of 1808 Nancy Hanks, who was of the family lineage of McAdden was visiting some of her family in the community of Lincolnton, North Carolina. During her stay in the Carolina's, she visited many neighboring families she had known for many years; one such was the Springs family. The sordid details had been omitted but obviously the young Nancy Hanks had found herself in a compromised position and was forced to succumb to the lust of A.A. Springs. She became pregnant as a result. There were no details of a love affair or an act of violence on a helpless female. Abraham Lincoln was the result of that act, which leads one to wonder if the name Lincoln was real or fabricated from the area of conception which was Lincolnton. Was there really a Thomas Lincoln? Since the Springs were of the race that called themselves "Jewish," Lincoln was part Jewish and as part of the Springs family, he also became a relative of the Rothschild family by blood."
The following data was derived from information that exists in the Smithsonian Institute, National Archives, the Congressional Library, Courtroom Police files, public and private libraries and storage vaults across the United States and Europe: "Abraham Lincoln was slapped three times with a white glove by a member of the Hapsburg royal family of Germany (Payseur family relatives) during a White House reception in 1862. The German royal family member demanded a pistol duel with the then President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. The blows to the face stunned Lincoln but he non-verbally refused to participate in the duel by bowing his head before walking out of the reception room. What had ol' honest Abe done to so enrage and upset the royal European personage?
It seems that promiscuity was running rampant in many families in those days and the German King Leopold had an illegitimate daughter named Elizabeth who was sent to America, where she lived in a very comfortable manner. Although Leopold could not recognize her position, he was very interested in her life.
In the early or mid 1850s, Abraham Lincoln and Elizabeth began having sexual liaisons that produced twin daughters named Ella and Emily in 1856. The regal German father who was so royally upset with ol' honest Abe probably had full knowledge of the true blood line of Lincoln. Abraham's wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, did not find out about Elizabeth, Ella and Emily until 1865.
Lincoln's wife Mary Todd was into the occult. Abraham Lincoln was a Rosicrucian and a member of the Order of the Lily's Council of Three along with Paschal Beverly Randolph and General Ethan Allen Hitchcock. The Todd family are considered by the Illuminati as part of the Collins boodline (one of the top illuminati families that has managed to remain low key. It is believed that the Collins family has been kept secret because they wield more power than the Rothschilds or the Rockefellers. Research shows the family has been connected to witchcraft since they arrived in New England in the 1630's, and at least part of the British Collins family are Jewish).
Previous to being informed about Elizabeth and the twins, Mrs. Lincoln had developed a ravaging dependency on opium. Her main supplier of the drug was a former member of the Confederate Intelligence community. He was a "former" member because the Southern gentlemen did not approve of his drug pushing and unreliable behavior. It was because of his involvement with the Southern Intelligence Community, that Mary's supplier—John Wilkes Booth—knew about the lover and the illegal twins.
After being spurned by the Confederate intelligence community, Mary's 'candy man' approached and became involved with the Rothschild Empire of Europe, for he realized the European banking moguls would be very interested in his pipeline to the White House. (At this time) Abraham was searching for an issue that would unite the North and South. After the Civil War ended. The issue needed to be popular to all levels of American citizenry so they could 'rally around the Stars and Stripes' thus rapidly healing the wounds of the bloodiest war in history.
Lincoln was seriously considering one major movement or event that would galvanize his fellow Northern and Southern patriot countrymen into cutting loose the United States of America from the dictatorial grip of the Hapsbergs bloodline and banking control in Europe. At this time the Rothschilds were trying to take control of the entire world monetary system, and also trying to get a foot-hold in America and find a way around the British, Virginia Company, and French Bourbon family that were gaining influence over this country with government help . . .
Lincoln found himself in real hot water, because the 48 families that formed the Virginia Company covenant, were all of the Holy Grail Bloodline. This country was to be an extension of the dominion of the royal families of Europe. The royalty of Europe is Hapsburg, no matter what their name. The royal family of England is one such example.
Lincoln wanted to become independent of the cognate (or common descent) on the Rothschild side. . . the Rothschilds and their family bloodline have always been undermining the affairs of the Hapsbergs and stealing monetary control away from them. No matter what the history books say, the Rothschilds did not get real control on things in America and the Federal Reserve until the Springs usurped the Payseur family companies in the early 1920s. . . (But Lincoln had fallen from Rothschild grace, due in part to his Executive Order to print United States Greenbacks, thus interfering with the Jewish International Banks' profits) It appears that the Rothschild family wanted Lincoln embarrassed to the maximum. (So) Mary Todd's drug dealer (John Wilkes Booth) was hired to kidnap the President of the United States.
Abraham Lincoln was to be put on board a boat for a two month Atlantic cruise where he would be injected with and addicted to opium, and then dumped on the streets of Washington. While the forcefully addicted President was stumbling around our nation's capital, the press would be informed of Elizabeth, Ella and Emily. The drug pusher (Booth) and collaborator (agent) of the Rothschilds had his perfect accomplice in the plot to kidnap and discredit the leader of the North American continent in the First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.
After being informed of her husband's lover and the twins and the kidnap plot by her drug supplier, Mary was promised that after her husband resigned or was impeached, she and Abe would be moved to Europe to live happily ever after with plenty of opium. Superficially Mary expressed a desire to live in Europe with plenty of opium and no Civil War or politics to distract her husband or family. But her drug supplier had totally underestimated the confusion, desperation and anger of Mary Todd Lincoln. The plotters decided the Presidential snatch needed to take place in a public, yet discreet location where a minimum witnesses would be present. There were too many potential witnesses at the White House. Two hours before the capture was to take place, Mary Todd threw a tantrum on the floor, because Abe had decided not to go out of the White House that night.
Mary's outrageous outburst caused Abe to change his mind and the First family departed. Several minutes after arriving at the kidnap location, Mary instructed the family bodyguard to take a position that placed the First Family out of his visual sight. The position also required the bodyguard to traverse several flights of stairs to reach Abe and Mary should he be needed for any reason. . . A wagon with a wooden cover arrived at the back entrance of the kidnap location with several men including Mary's opium supplier. The plan was for the drug pusher to traverse the backstairs entrance, silently move down a hallway, and open an unlocked door to a darkened room where Mary and Abe were sitting. After entering the room, Mary's drug man (Booth) would tell the President an urgent message was waiting for him at the War Department. Before descending the backstairs, Abe would be knocked out with a chloroform cloth. The kidnappers would load the limp body into the covered wagon and swiftly stow Lincoln on an opium boat for a novel 'cruise' of the Atlantic Ocean.
When Booth actually opened the door to the darkened room where Abe and Mary were sitting, he went into a panic and shock. Abe was asleep with his head on Mary's left shoulder and the First Lady had her head turned toward the left looking at the door. . . When she was sure the man who opened the door was Booth, she turned and looked at the President to be sure the pistol she was pointing would explode beneath the lower left earlobe of her husband. Before Mary pulled the trigger, John Wilkes Booth, drug supplier to the First Lady, realized he was the patsy in all this mess. But he did not know if he was only Mary's patsy or also a chump for the Rothschild family. Were the men hiding around the back door of Ford's Theater there to help Booth with the kidnaping or to point the false finger at the 'innocent' Booth? Booth was not about to run into the hallway or down the backstairs to find out the answer to that question. The only escape route was to jump the balcony and crash onto the stage during the performance. That night, Booth gave a literal interpretation of the theatrical phrase 'brake a leg' as he fractured one of his during his leaping act from 'lethally looney Mary' and the men lurking around the back entrance of Ford's Theater.
In a novelty case on a wall in Ford's Theater is 'The Gun That Shot Abraham Lincoln.' If anyone (assassin) were to kill a head of state, they would use a revolver, because several bullets might be needed to accomplish the murder and stop any guards during the escape. One would only use a one-shot pistol if they were absolutely sure they had intimate access to the victim. The gun on the wall of Ford's Theater is a derringer — the perfect weapon for the left handed female assassin who did not attend her husbands funeral.
Mary Todd was not hiding in her room due to overwhelming grief and sorrow; she was imprisoned in her room with two armed guards for two weeks after killing her husband. In the 1860s, an act of Congress mandated the compensation of widows of former and active Congressmen, Senators, Vice Presidents and Presidents. The amount and duration was ratified by both Houses of Congress for each widow. Mary Todd Lincoln applied for her widowers compensation three times and was denied the mandated compensation three times by both Houses of Congress. An unknown benefactor paid for Mary's passage to Europe where she died in small cottage in Germany.
In 1867, the Secret Service was founded so that drunken municipal law enforcement could not unwittingly participate with drug-addicted First Ladies or Gentlemen in vengeful high-brow killings of philandering Presidents of the United States. (To cover up the murders committed which would reflect a bad light for the presiding Administration, such as the Vince Foster murder cover-up at the present time). Before Booth jumped out of the balcony of the Presidential Box of the Ford Theater, he shouted at General Riley and his wife who were sitting to the right-front of the Lincolns. Booth's words expressed his innocence but also sealed the fate of the Rileys. Within a week of the shooting, General Riley and his wife were packed off to an insane asylum where they both died of 'unknown causes' within 30 days of being committed." (Pandora's Box, by Alex Christopher, pp. 282-286). It is interesting to note what Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise said of Lincoln in the Cincinnati Commercial, April 20, 1865: "Brethren, the lamented Abraham Lincoln, believed to be bone from our bone and flesh from our flesh. He was supposed to be a descendant of Hebrew parentage. He said so in my presence. And, indeed, he presented numerous features of the Hebrew race, both in countenance and character" (Bertram W. Korn, Eventful Years, p. 133; Sarna and Klein, Jews of Cincinnati, p. 53). pandora.htm
Additional information corroborating this Article may be found at Mary Todd Killed Lincoln.
Was there a Jewish President?
By Rabbi Jeff Kahn (Temple Har Shalom, Warren N.J., USA)
Abraham Lincoln was Jewish!
"On the twelfth of February, 1809, nearly 200 years ago, a young, poor illiterate woman from Virginia, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, gave birth to a son, in a log cabin, built along the banks of the south fork of Nolin Creek, near what is now Hodgenville, Kentucky. That baby, whom she named Abraham, grew to become one of our greatest, and most tragic, national leaders.
Lincoln was a man of great spiritual conviction. Yet, and I find this fact fascinatingly instructive, Abraham Lincoln was the only American president not to have declared himself a member of any particular religious faith. That fact has given rise to a great deal of interesting speculation. In fact, there are those who believe that
Honest Abe was Jewish.After all, his name was Abraham. His great-grandfather was named Mordechai. Lincoln was the only President not to have a formal religious affiliation. He was neither raised in a church nor did he ever belong to a church.
And there's more . . . the town of Lincoln, in eastern England, whence his ancestors came, has an interesting Jewish history. A Jewish community was established there in 1159. During Crusader riots, the Sheriff of Lincoln saved the Jews by giving them official protection. St. Hugh, the great Bishop of Lincoln, taught love of Jews to his parishioners. His death was marked by an official period of mourning among Lincoln’s Jews. Rabbi Joseph of Lincoln was a scholar mentioned in the Talmud; Aaron of Lincoln was a financier whose operations extended all over the country.
In 1255, Lincoln's Jews were accused of ritual murder. Ninety-one Lincoln Jews were sent to London for trial and 18 were executed. Notwithstanding, the Lincoln Jewish community flourished until 1290, when they were forcibly expelled by edict.
Most Jewish historians assume that all the Jews of Lincoln left in 1290. But could it be possible that some remained, practicing their Judaism in secret . . . passing the family secret from generation to generation? The more we learn of the secret life of Spanish Jewry following the Expulsion of 1492, the more we must at least consider the possibility of the same thing occurring elsewhere.
When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, whole Jewish communities sat shivah. Rabbis all over the country eulogized the fallen President. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the man who created Reform Judaism in this country, began his eulogy with the words . . . "Brethren, the lamented Abraham Lincoln believed himself to be bone from our bone and flesh from our flesh. He supposed himself to be a descendant of Hebrew parentage He said so in my presence"
Lincoln was often questioned about his religious beliefs. Time and again, he told of a special passage from Scripture that summed up his theology. It was the twentieth chapter of the Book of Exodus he recommended that every American study, learn and follow. In English it is usually referred to as the Ten Commandments"
Additional information corroborating this Article may be found at Melungeons: The Last Lost Tribe of America.
The Causes of the 'Civil War' in the Words of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis
By Professor Thomas DiLorenzo
"When [the states] entered into the Union of 1789, it was with the undeniable recognition of the power of the people to resume the authority delegated for the purposes of that government, whenever in their opinion, its functions were perverted and its ends defeated . . . the sovereign States here represented have seceded from that Union, and it is a gross abuse of language to denominate the act rebellion or revolution." ? Jefferson Davis, First Inaugural Address, Montgomery, Alabama, February 1861.
"That . . . the Union is perpetual [is] confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual . . . . It follows from these views that no State . . . can lawfully get out of the Union . . . and that acts . . . against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary . . ." ? Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.
These two statements by Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis from their respective first inaugural addresses highlight perhaps the main cause of the War to Prevent Southern Independence: Davis believed, as the founding fathers did, that the union of the states was a voluntary union created when the free, independent, and sovereign states ratified the Constitution, as directed by Article 7 of the Constitution; Lincoln asserted that it was not voluntary, and was more like what future generations would come to know as the Soviet Union?held together by force and bloodshed. Murray Rothbard mocked Lincoln's theory of the involuntary American union a "one-way Venus flytrap" theory of the union in his essay, "Just War." Indeed, in the same speech Lincoln used the words "invasion" and "bloodshed" to describe what would happen in any state that left his "perpetual" union. His position was that after fighting a long war of secession from the tyrannical British empire, the founders turned around and created a nearly identical, British-style centralized state from which there could never be any escape.
As important as this issue was, Jefferson Davis announced to the world that an equally if not more important issue was the attempt of the North to finally use the powers of the national state to plunder the South, with a protectionist tariff being its primary tool of plunder. As he stated in his first inaugural address, the Southern people were "anxious to cultivate peace and commerce with all nations." However:
"There can be no cause to doubt that the courage and patriotism of the people of the Confederate States will be found equal to any measure of defence which may be required for their security. Devoted to agricultural pursuits, their chief interest is the export of a commodity required in every manufacturing country. Our policy is peace, and the freest trade our necessities will permit. It is alike our interest, and that of all those to whom we would sell and from whom we would buy, that there should be the fewest practicable restrictions upon interchange of commodities. There can be but little rivalry between us and any manufacturing or navigating community, such as the Northwestern States of the American Union."
"It must follow, therefore, that mutual interest would invite good will and kindness between them and us. If, however, passion or lust of domination should cloud the judgment and inflame the ambition of these States, we must prepare to meet the emergency, and maintain, by the final arbitrament of the sword, the position we have assumed among the nations of the earth."
To put these statements into context, it is important to understand the North was in the process of more than doubling the average tariff rate on imports at a time when at least 90 percent of all federal tax revenue came from tariffs on imports. The rate of federal taxation was about to more than double (from 15% to 32.7%), as it did on March 2, 1861 when President James Buchanan, the Pennsylvania protectionist, signed the Morrill Tariff into law, a law that was relentlessly promoted by Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party. (The Pennsylvania delegation was a key to Lincoln's nomination. Before the Republican convention he sent a private emissary, Judge David Davis, to Pennsylvania with original copies of all of his speeches in defense of protectionist tariffs over the previous twenty-five years in order to convince the Pennsylvania protectionists, led by steel manufacturer/legislator Thaddeus Stevens, that he was their man. He won over the Pennsylvania delegation and he later appointed Davis to the Supreme Court).
Ever since the Tariff of 1824, and the even more protectionist 1828 "Tariff of Abominations," with a 48% average tariff rate, the South had been protesting and even threatening nullification and secession over protectionist plunder, as South Carolina did in 1833 when it formally nullified the "Tariff of Abominations." The votes in Congress on these tariffs was completely lopsided in terms of Northern support and Southern opposition?although there were small minorities of Southern protectionists and Northern free traders, especially in New York City in the latter case.
The South, like the Mid-West, was an agricultural society that was being plundered twice by protection tariffs: Once by paying higher prices for "protected" manufactured goods, and a second time by reduced exports after the high tariffs impoverished their European customers who were prohibited from selling in the US by the high tariffs. Most of the South's agricultural produce?as much as 75% or so in some years?was sold in Europe.
South Carolina nullified the Tariff of Abominations and forced President Andrew Jackson to agree to a lower, compromise tariff rate that was phased in over ten years, beginning in 1833. The North did not yet have the political clout to plunder the South, an act that many Southern statesmen considered to be a gross violation of the constitutional contract that justified secession. But by 1861 the population growth in the North, and the addition of new Northern states, had given the North enough political power to finally plunder the agricultural South and Mid-West with protectionist tariffs. The Morrill Tariff had passed the House of Representatives during the 1859-'60 session, long before any Southern state seceded, and the writing was on the wall that it was only a matter of time before the US Senate would follow suit.
The Confederate Constitution outlawed protectionist tariffs altogether, calling only for a modest "revenue tariff" of ten percent or so. This so horrified the "Party of Great Moral Causes" that Republican Party-affiliated newspapers in the North were calling for the bombardment of Southern ports before the war. With a Northern tariff in the 50% range (where it would be after Lincoln signed ten tariff-raising pieces of legislation, and remained in that range for the succeeding fifty years) compared to the Southern 10% average tariff rate, they understood that much of the trade of the world would go through Southern, not Northern, ports and to them, that was cause for war. "We now have the votes and we intend to plunder you mercilessly; if you resist we will invade, conquer, and subjugate you" is essentially what the North, with its election of lifelong protectionist Abraham Lincoln as a sectional president, was saying.
Neither Lincoln nor the Republican party opposed Southern slavery during the 1860 campaign. They only opposed the extension of slavery into the new territories. This was not because of any concern for the slaves, but was part of their strategy of perpetual plunder. Mid-West farmers, like Southern farmers, were harshly discriminated against by protectionist tariffs. They, too, were double-taxed by protectionism. This is why the Mid-West (called "the North-West" in the 1860s) provided serious antebellum resistance to the Yankee scheme of protectionist plunder. (The Mid-West also provided some of the most effective opposition to the Lincoln regime during the war, being the home of the "Copperheads," so named as a slanderous term by the Republican Party). This opposition was watered down, however, when the Republican Party championed the policy of preventing slavery in the territories, preserving them "for free white labor" in the words of Abraham Lincoln himself. Mid-Westerners were as racist as anyone else in the mid nineteenth century, and the overwhelming majority of them did not want black people, free or slave, living among them. Lincoln's own state of Illinois had amended its constitution in 1848 to prohibit the immigration of free blacks into the state, and Lincoln himself was a "manager" of the Illinois Colonization Society, which used state tax dollars to deport the small number of free blacks who resided in the state.
White laborers and farm hands also did not want competition for their jobs by blacks, free or slave, and the Republican Party was happy to pander to them. Then there is the "problem" of slaves in the Territories inflating the congressional representation of the Democratic Party because of the Three-Fifths Clause of the Constitution. With more Democratic representation protectionist plunder would become that much more difficult to achieve.
This strategy was explained in the Report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs by the Confederate States of America on September 4, 1861:
"Whilst the people of the North-West, being like the people of the South, an agricultural people, were generally opposed to the protective tariff policy?the grand sectionalizing instrumentality of the North. They were allies of the South, to defeat this policy. Hence it has been only partially, and occasionally successful. To make it complete, and to render the North omnipotent to rule the South, the division in the North must be healed. To accomplish this object, and to sectionalize the North, the agitation concerning African slavery in the South was commenced . . . . Accordingly, after the overthrow of the Tariff of 1828 [i.e., the Tariff of Abominations], by the resistance of South Carolina in 1833, the agitation concerning the institution of Southern slavery . . . was immediately commenced in the Congress of the United States . . . . The first fruit of [this] sectional despotism . . . was the tariff lately passed by the Congress of the United States. By this tariff the protective policy is renewed in its most odious and oppressive forms, and the agricultural States are made tributaries to the manufacturing States."
Lincoln's First Inaugural Address: "Pay Up or Die!"
Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address was arguably the strongest defense of Southern slavery ever made by an American politician. He began by saying that in "nearly all the published speeches" he had made he declared that "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 lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." He next quoted the Republican Party Platform of 1860, which he fully endorsed, that proclaimed that "the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions . . . is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of four political fabric depend . . ." (emphasis added). "Domestic institutions" meant slavery.
Lincoln then pledged to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, which he in fact did during his administration, returning dozens of runaway slaves to their "owners." Most importantly, seven paragraphs from the end of his speech he endorsed the Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which had already passed the House and Senate and was ratified by several states. This "first thirteenth amendment" would prohibit the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery. It would have enshrined slavery explicitly in the text of the Constitution. Lincoln stated in the same paragraph that he believed slavery was already constitutional, but that he had "no objection to its being made express and irrevocable."
In her book Team of Rivals Doris Kearns-Goodwin uses primary sources to document that the source of the amendment was not really Ohio Congressman Thomas Corwin but Abraham Lincoln who, after he was elected but before he was inaugurated, instructed William Seward to get the amendment through the Northern-dominated U.S. Senate, which he did. Other Republicans saw to it that the Northern-dominated House of Representatives would also vote in favor of it.
So on the day he was inaugurated Abraham Lincoln offered the strongest, most uncompromising defense of Southern slavery imaginable. He effectively announced to the world that if the Southern states remained in the union and submitted to being plundered by the Yankee-dominated protectionist empire, then nothing would ever be done about slavery by the US government.
The US Senate's War Aims Resolution later echoed Lincoln's words that the war was NOT about slavery but about "saving the union," a contention that Lincoln repeated many times, including in his famous letter to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley in which he said publicly once again that this purpose was to "save the union" and not to do anything about slavery. In reality Lincoln's regime utterly destroyed the voluntary union of the founding fathers. By "saving the union" they meant forcing the South to submit to protectionist plunder, not preserving the highly decentralized, voluntary union of the founding generation based on such principles as federalism and subsidiarity.
In dramatic contrast, on the issue of tariff collection Abraham Lincoln was violently uncompromising. "Nothing" is more important than passing the Morrill Tariff, he had announced to a Pennsylvania audience a few weeks earlier. Nothing. In his first inaugural address he stated in the eighteenth paragraph that "[T]here needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority." What could he have been talking about? What would cause "the national authority" to commit acts of "bloodshed" and "violence" against its own American citizens? Doesn't the president take an oath in which he promises to defend the constitutional liberties of American citizens? How would ordering acts of "bloodshed" and "violence" against them be consistent with the presidential oath of office which he had just taken, with his atheistic hand on a Bible, just moments earlier?
Lincoln explained in the next sentence: "The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using force against or among the people anywhere" (emphasis added). The "duties and imposts" he referred to were the tariffs to be collected under the new Morrill Tariff law. If there was to be a war, he said, the cause of the war would in effect be the refusal of the Southern states to submit to being plundered by the newly-doubled federal tariff tax, a policy that the South had been periodically threatening nullification and secession over for the previous thirty-three years.
In essence, Abraham Lincoln was announcing to the world that he would not back down to Southern secessionists as President Andrew Jackson had done by acquiescing in a negotiated reduction of the Tariff of Abominations (negotiated by Lincoln's lifelong political idol and inspiration, Henry Clay, the author of the Tariff of Abominations in the first place!). He promised "violence," "bloodshed," and war over tariff collection, and he kept his promise.
Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is professor of economics at Loyola University Maryland and the author of The Real Lincoln; How Capitalism Saved America; Lincoln Unmasked; Hamilton?s Curse; Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government; and most recently, The Problem With Socialism.
