It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Secondly, you have overlooked the fact that European bankers were actively encouraging the South to secede from the union. The strategy of the people you cited, the Rothchilds and such, was to divide and conquer the United States. European bankers were intentionally driving a wedge between the industrialized North and the Agrarian South so that they could take control of our nation.
The great majority of the people in the North fought the civil war for legitimate reasons. The proof of this is the famous Lincoln Douglas debates on slavery. Where are the great debates of the day on banking? Slavery was the main issue of the day. It wasn't about freeing the slaves, it was about farmers refusing to compete with slave labor.
Yes, the elites of the North unfairly profited a great deal from the war and that is a shame, but the vast majority of the people of the North paid dearly with their lives and the lives of their loved ones to keep the U.S. united, and we are a better nation because of this.
First of all, the days prior to 1913 were not the good ole days, and reading "The Jungle" which was based on journalistic research of the day, clearly points out what a mess the country was in. The federal reserve was also created by elites because they thought that they could use banking to smooth out economic swings that were resulting in regular periods of depression which the economy of that day experienced on a regular interval. The result was a long sustained period without a depression, leading to the great depression.
The fact that House was a descendant of Southern Gentry backs up my earlier post that the South was closely tied to European bankers, who had been practicing their technique in Europe for centuries. Woodrow Wilson was either a wolf in sheep's clothes, or a liberal who was duped by his master.
I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.
The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.
A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.
If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it.
A key point that I would like to point out about FDR, is that following the FDR period, after WW II, was a period of strong unions and growth of the middle class, resulting in a period of the strongest sustained economic expansion in our nations history. This period was in fact the good ole days, when technological growth exploded, and the U.S. developed into a truly great nation. Could it be that FDR succeeded in duping the people who put him in power, leading to an expansion of the middle class in a way that has not been seen perhaps in all of recorded civilization? I admit this last statement is purely conjecture, but the things that lead up to our economic success in the fifties and the sixties should be studied. I don't see how the changes created by FDR can be completely discounted.
I have read about the history of the civil war, and I know what was going on in the Kansas territories before the war. If you want to ignore the ongoing hostilities at the time, then you are ignoring history. Once again, the average person in the North fought for the reasons I explained, and those were legitimate reasons.
European bankers considered interfering in the Civil War, but they realized that this would have been a foolish move on their part. European bankers simply did not have the ability to raise the military force that would have been necessary. They simply did not have the military force that would have been required. By the time they realized that the South was going to lose, the North was already too well organized. European soldiers attempting to invade the North would have gotten their clocks cleaned by the well seasoned veterans of the numerous wars with the Indians, fighting on their home turf. The British still had an Empire to maintain.
I agree with you that the Federal Reserve Act was bad for our country, I was just pointing out that they thought they could control the economy through the Federal Reserve, and they failed. I think this point gives us hope that we can regain our rights.
The Civil War was a sad time for our country, and has left us divided as a nation in many ways, to this very day. I don't see either side as the bad guys, but I feel that the war was probably inevitable. How else could slavery have ended? In many ways I think the South was trapped by the institution of slavery, and it is difficult to imagine how things could have gone differently. Too many other forces were involved. I hope you respect my opinion on this matter. I think it is important that we recognize the many reasons that the war was fought. I think further discussion would only distract from the topic.
I don't think bankers had their way after WW II. I think they just went along for the ride. Their efforts then went towards control of the Asian Southeast rim, until the time when they could hatch further plans to undermine the working class in the U.S.. I don't think the elites desired the strong growth of unions and the middle class.
I did not mean to imply that Northern soldiers were vastly superior to Southern soldiers. They were fairly equal. Although I do not think that the quality of Northern soldiers in the western parts of the then U.S. were given the respect that they deserve. I think that Northern soldiers had some advantages, considering their experiences in fighting against the tribes of the now Midwest. My point is that that any invading European army would have been at sever disadvantage, fighting a type of guerrilla warfare they were not accustomed to fighting. Their is also the very real possibility that the situation of brother fighting against brother in the U.S. would have very likely lead them to unite against any invading foreign military. The confederacy might have found that those who did not own large plantations might have abandoned their cause if a foreign force had attempted to invade. It is never a good idea to get into a fight between two brothers, because usually you wind up finding yourself fighting both brothers. This would have been the last thing that European bankers wanted.
Where European bankers failed the most is in mustering a Naval force to oppose the Union blockade. While the U.S. military naval forces were small at the time, its merchant marine force was considerable. The British Navy would have had to make a serious investment to mount a reasonable naval force to break the Union Naval Blockade, and due to commitments in the far East, they were not willing to make such a commitment, thereby dooming the South. While European bankers had considerable influence over the British Empire, they did not have that much influence. The investment in the far East was simply too valuable to deploy the naval forces necessary to contend with the large U.S. merchant fleet, combined with the growth potential of the U.S. military fleet.
I think that while the wealthy elites had their reason to fight the civil war, the people of the North, especially family farmers in the west, had their own justifiable reason. As long as slavery continued, the conflicts in the Kansas territories were not going to go away. It was a matter of family farmers verses plantation owners.
Many forces colluded to ignite the war.
I do not think the South could have ended slavery in a decade, or even two. Racism was very prevalent at the time, not only against blacks, but against Asians as well, and continues on to this very day, although as a declining social issue. The South had, and still has, a very large black population, and that created a very large problem. Southerners simply did not know what to do with slaves, once they were freed.
Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.
The Union was also vying for European support.
...pointed out that when Lincoln made the emancipation proclamation, it won the support of the British public which opposed slavery, and ended any potential that Britain would actively intervene on behalf of the Confederacy.
A point that I would like to note is that the family farms of the North were not having problems competing against black slave labor, this had nothing to do with the situation. It was the individual farmer working his own land competing against the institution of the plantations...
A few other notes. As far as the successful integration of races after the ending of slavery, Europe never had a slave population as large as the South U.S. or South America. It was much easier to deal with and accept in Europe. I also disagree that racial integration in Latin America has been all that more successful, and that the situation is more that the other problems of the region so greatly overshadow the racial tensions that do exist. In addition, the ending of slavery in the U.S. hastened the ending of slavery in Latin America.
I should let the subject go, but I think it is important to point out the the struggle was also one of a society of independent farmers verses a society controlled by a feudalistic plantations of state sanctioned slavers.
I agree that European bankers were playing both sides in the civil war, and they looked upon the situation as an opportunity for them to gain control of the U.S.. I think we are sidetracked by how much influence bankers had in the U.S. civil war, but I suppose I have a legitimate role to play as devils advocate