Students of world history will recognize
the name of Robespierre, a French socialist revolutionary during the time
of the French Revolution. English historian Nesta Webster commented
on Robespierre. She said that "Robespierre regarded anarchy simply
as a means to an end--the reconstruction of society according to the plan
he had evolved with the co-operation of Saint Just, which was simply an
embryonic form of the system known later as state socialism." So,
history testifies that Robespierre was a socialist, out to transform society
into what he thought it should be--for the "good" of mankind, naturally.
He was willing to justify whatever
means he used to accomplish his desired ends,
anarchy, terror, or whatever.
He felt that these methods, if they helped to accomplish his goal (state
socialism) must be good.
An Updated 1860s Version
Abraham Lincoln, the "great emancipator"
of abolitionist myth and
legend, has been compared to Robespierre
by some historians and writers.
E.A. Pollard, editor of the RICHMOND
EXAMINER during the
War for Southern Independence has
written much about how the North prosecuted the war. His 750 page book
THE LOST CAUSE is worthwhile reading for serious students of that period
of history.
In writing of the prevailing climate
in the North during the early days of the war, Pollard noted that: "Much
of the apparent unanimity which prevailed in favor of the war was the result
of terror. The people of the North seem to have a peculiar dread
of public opinion. "In writing of the actions of the Yankee government
Pollard said: "But very effective measures were taken by the Government
in aid of this spontaneous instinct of terror. They revived the system
of espionage and arrests which had been employed in France by Robespierre
and Fouche. At first, it was pretended that the arrested persons
held secret correspondence with the Southern authorities; but soon all
disguise and hypocrisy were thrown off, and arrests were made on charges,
even suspicion, of mere disloyalty."
Pollard noted, quite correctly,
that, in the North, there was no need of arbitrary arrests, as the war
was far distant and the country was not really invaded --excepting Maryland
and Pennsylvania later in the war. Pollard stated: "Yet a system
of terror was established, which could only have been warrantable at the
South...Yet in the first weeks of the war, a system of arbitrary and despotic
seizure and imprisonment was inaugurated, which continued even after the
surrenders of Lee and Johnston. The number of arbitrary arrests that
were made in the whole period of the war is variously estimated at from
ten to thirty thousand, the great mass of arrested persons never had a
trial, and knew nothing of the charges, if any at all, on which they had
been imprisoned." Some were even informed that if they asked for
legal counsel, that would be "distasteful to the Government, and would
prejudice their applications for trail and release." The quest for
simple justice is always "distasteful" to tyrants!
The "Secret Police"
The NEW YORK TRIBUNE reported,
on September 6, 1861, that: "Eight hundred names are now entered on the
books of the secret police in New York City, of persons suspected of treason,
and many arrests will be made."
"Secret Police" in New York City
in 1861? The entire episode sounds suspiciously like a KGB operation
in Moscow! Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. That
which has been, will be. It almost seems as if the Lincoln Administration
was giving us kind of a sneak preview of what was to come. Of course,
present day "historians" would not quite see it that way.
Even The "P C" Have to Agree
Even modern, politically correct,
revisionist "historians" although they agree with and try to whitewash
the socialist emancipator, are forced to concede that his administration
was quite ruthless. Those in Lincoln's cabinet were quite willing
to go along with his Jacobin mindset.
Mark Neely
Jr., in his book THE FATE OF LIBERTY has written of Secretary of
State William
A. Seward in the same vein. When a "political prisoner" from
Kentucky was arrested, a friend of his came to Washington to plead for
his release. Neely writes:"...the Secretary of State readily admitted
that no charges were on file against the prisoner. When asked whether
he intended to keep citizens imprisoned against whom no charges had been
made, Seward apparently answered: 'I don't care a d--n whether they are
guilty or innocent. I saved Maryland by similar arrests, and so I
mean to hold Kentucky'." In other words, to "preserve" the Union
you destroy all its
constitutional
guarantees of protection against intrusive government. It almost
reminds
one of a mad doctor trying to kill his patient in order to save his life!
The willingness
to kill something to "save" it is quite consistent with the Yankee mindset.
Even the Yankees' own records bear this out. Neely states that "Just
after the Civil War, 'The American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important
Events of the Year 1865' stated that the total number of military arrests
in the North had been thirty-eight thousand."
Neely's
book even has a small section on torture employed by the North
(pages
109-112).
And What
About Today?
You may
be tempted to wonder what all this has to do with today. We have
U.S. troops under United Nations command and those few troops that refuse
to knuckle under to such an unconstitutional situation are being court-martialed
and given dishonorable discharges. We have runaway big government
intrusion into our lives and a 'voluntary" income tax that would have made
Lincoln drool in anticipation. Since we were all born after 1860,
none of us has ever had the opportunity to live under the system of government
our founders gave us--a constitutional republic, whatever its faults may
have been. We are, however, living under various degrees of state
socialism, euphemistically called "democracy."
Let us remember
that all of this started not with FR and the New Deal, as so many today
have been led to believe. We are living under a program of state
socialism that started with the Lincoln Administration, and that was forced
on both North and South during the "late unpleasantness" and afterward
during "Reconstruction."
Did Lincoln's
administration during the war, and Thaddeus Stevens and his radical, abolitionist
Republicans after the war, like Robespierre, labor to reconstruct American
society to conform to some branch of socialism? You get three guesses
-- and the first two don't count!
Bibliography
WORLD REVOLUTION
by Nesta H. Wester
Constable
and Company Ltd, London, 1921
THE LOST
CAUSE by EA.. Pollard
Gramercy
Books, New York, Avenal, New Jersey, 1994
THE FATE
OF LIBERTY by Mark E. Neely Jr.
Oxford
University Press, New York, Oxford, 1991
