MM#138--The Impending Crisis--Liberty in the Balance

Welcome to the theory to action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately, and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.

Hello, I'm David and welcome back to another Mojo minute. And staying with our theme of American history this week, and liberty in the balance, meaning those areas in our public life where our liberties are threatened. Let's talk about the US Civil War. US Civil War was fought from April of 1861 until April of 1865. It was one of the most brutal times in our country's history. And we would all do well to study this time period and learn its unique history. And the Civil War was certainly a time period where Liberty was in the balance. One of the great books that can help us do that is David Potter's the impending crisis America before the Civil War 1848 to 1861. And Mr. Potter is one of the most distinguished and respected American historians of his time. Potter writes, very clear, writes very objective. And he has an extensive amount of footnotes, which I love. Because footnotes can be one of your best sources for finding more books to read on a particular subject, or a line of thought or questioning you're uncertain about. And Potter details those events and the general feeling in the country from 1848 1861 quite well. 

I love how he paints a broad brush or crossed our national landscape in the years leading up to the Civil War, just love this, that part of the book. It's one of the reasons I recommend this book to almost everybody who is interested in the Civil War. And I love the fact that it was recommended to me by one of the guides at the Gettysburg National Battlefield Memorial, during my at least one of my three or four visits to the battlefield. And as a side note, I would highly recommend going to our national landmarks such as the Gettysburg National Battlefield or Shiloh. I've been to both I've also been to the battle Chattanooga. As well as I would recommend going to our to Washington DC. 

I spent three years in Washington, excuse me, and all the museums and the monuments, you just get a real feel for our country's history. And a great appreciation, I believe, greater appreciation a great respect. You can also go to Philadelphia for the Liberty bill to see where the Constitution was written. And often, that's where you're going to find some of your best scholarship taking place is outside of the academic circles. And especially at the Gettysburg National Battlefield, their battlefield guides are well worth spending the money to get them for an hour or an hour and a half. They can take you to various parts of the battlefield and give you all the way down to company location and movements, orders of battle, who is doing what simultaneously while other parts of the battlefield are going on something you just don't get it other at other places. Now I should say this book is on Audible. And you can cheat like me crank out this book over your headphones or in the car like I did. But the events that have led to the civil war, they were complex. They were nuanced. But yet they were understandable. 

And some of those events are the southern movement and the doctrine of popular sovereignty. That was launched by John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. The compromise of 1850 played a huge role and events that led up to the Civil War, the huge influx of immigration in the years leading up to 1861. Obviously the Supreme Court decision, tragic decision, one of the worst the court has ever done. With the Dred Scott decision decision in 1857, John C. Calhoun again came around with the Nullification Crisis. All these things damaged our country.

But one of the most unique things and Potter talks about this is the changing of the political parties, most especially into sectional factions, which sadly, we are starting to see, and beginning to see more momentum in our day now. Since we look back across that bullet point list, you can see there's many events that worked together to bring our country into that boiling point, it was in the early 1860s. And we should study them all. But obviously, we only have time now for one in this liberty in the balance Mojo minute. 

So let's go to the book so we can hear Potter's words for himself and his incredible insights. Let's go to the book. It is not a very serious exaggeration to say the United States was holding two elections simultaneously on November 6 1860. This meant that each section remained somewhat insulated. From what the other was doing. If the Republicans had been campaigning in the south, they would have necessarily, they wouldn't necessarily have stressed Lincoln's recognition of the right of the southern states to determine the question of slavery for themselves, they would have presented an image of him as an old fashioned Henry Clay wig a native of Kentucky. Insofar as they had done this, it might have served to prevent the creation of a totally negative and fictitious image of Lincoln, which was being developed in the south, the image of a quote Black Republican, unquote, a rabbit John Brown, abolitionist, and inverted enemy of the South. Yet this picture prevailed during all the months of the campaign. And psychologically it was not strange that southerners felt hostile to a candidate who was not even on the ticket, and they're part of the country. When Lincoln was elected, the result came to the south as a much greater shock than it would have, if Republican speakers or even Lincoln himself had been ranging up and down and back and forth throughout the south, asking the voters to trust him. The Republicans would have had nothing to gain from such a campaign and southerners wouldn't have never permitted it. But the point is that the voters of the South were naturally prepared to believe the worst of a candidate when most of them had never seen even one of his supporters, much less the man himself, and when his party did not even seek their support, in fact, the American party system had ceased to operate. In a nationwide context. The American party system had ceased to operate in a nationwide context. So you can see both sides are going to their corners, both sides are not talking to each other both sides meaning both political parties, the Democrats and the newly formed Republican Party. So we have to keep that in the back of our mind. 

Let's continue with Potter's book. Quote. While the south failed to form a realistic impression of Lincoln, the North failed to understand the mood of the South preoccupied as they were with the exciting contests between Lincoln and Douglas northern voters paid insufficient heed to the steady drum fire of dis Unionist editorials and speeches from the south. Perhaps such voters follow the Republican practice of dismissing all such statements as a bluff designed to prevent timid citizens from voting their principles. Perhaps they were too readily reassured by the one speech which Breckinridge made during the campaign at Ashland, Kentucky on September 5, he spent three hours affirming his unionism without indicating that he meant Union on his own terms. Perhaps they were too easily load by Unionist in the border states and by men trying to encourage moderation in the north who were in fact no more ready to resist this union than to advocate it. These myths, apprehensions of the Republicans were fostered by the dualism of the campaign, which raised barriers to communication between the north and the south and of quote, so we can see both sides are not talking to each other. Both are at fault. One of the Norse tragic errors is dismissing the south bluff on voting to leave the union they had tried this. They had, they had set up this tribal in many, many times throughout the 1850s.

The South's tragic error, one among so many obviously, it's the see that chattel slavery was against all human dignity and cannot continue in the country. Where were the leaders, you might ask? Where were the leaders that said we had to change we have to change our culture. Where was the leadership in the south, which failed incredibly decade upon decade, to change that culture to change that economy. So now we fast forward to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor in April of 1861. Let's go back to the book. 

Quote at Charleston Beauregard had standing orders to prevent any relief expedition from entering the harbor, and they scarcely needed repeating. But the Davis government went further and decided that Fort Sumter must be taken before the fox expedition arrived. The Fox expedition was a relief expedition from the North. That would eliminate the danger of having to fight both Anderson and his seaborne Rescuers at the same time. In order to obtain this military advantage of dubious worth. The Confederacy voluntarily accepted the role of aggressor preparing to open fire if necessary on the American flag on a fortress charged with deep symbolic meaning, and on a soldier who had become a national hero. It would have been difficult to devise a strategy better calculated to arouse and unite the divided in irresolute north. The primary significance of the Southern attack on Fort Sumter is not that it started the Civil War, but rather that it started the war in such a manner as to give the cause give the cause of union and eruptive force, which might otherwise have been slow to acquire End of quote. Fort Sumter would be fired on for some 33 hours. Ultimately, Robert Anderson to the North Woods surrender the fort before Fox and his union rescue party to get to the fort as a backup. Let's go back to the book for the final quote. 

Quote during the battle, a combined total of nearly 5000 artillery rounds had been fired, miraculously, without causing a single fatality on either side. It was a deceptively bloodless beginning to one of the bloodiest wars in history. exactly four years after the surrender, that is on April 14 1865, Robert Anderson returned to raise his old flag over Fort Sumter. By then the sounds of battle had given way to the stillness at Appomattox. And the issues that had to flamed the antebellum years had been settled. Slavery was dead, secession was dead, and 600,000 men were dead. That was the balance. That was the basic balance sheet of the sectional conflict. The sounds of battle gave way to the stillness of Appomattox. Slavery was dead, secession was dead. And some 600,000 men were dead on both sides. That is extremely tragic. To put that in perspective, up until the Vietnam War, the number killed in the Civil War surpassed all other wars combined. That is a very, very grave statistic. 

So in today's liberty in the balance Mojo minute, let us study the Civil War to understand better how quickly tragedy can come to our country. In this time of incredible strife when major cities are being rude. Tinley looted without consequences. And when a federal police building is fired upon burned and the occupants forced to abandon the building without consequences. And when, as in the last moment that we covered when folks are screaming that the Supreme Court is illegitimate, that we need to pack the court so that they can get their political way instead of going through the democratic process. These are attacks on the structure of our government and that is horrific. Our structure is everything. And perhaps we need to do more education about our structure and how vital it is our three distinct and CO equal branches of government with our checks and balances, power diffused across those branches among those checks and balances. There's nowhere else in the world that has that that replicates that that's the uniqueness of America. That's the exceptionalism of America not even England has a viable working bicameral legislature, the House of Lords. That's pretty much just decoration. It really has zero power, just the House of Commons does. So, let me end my mini rant there. Suffice it to say, these are all very bad ideas that thrust our country in a direction we should not go. Why? Because our American history is telling us it's in fact, it's pleading with us. These are all boiling points. These are all quickly accelerating to become boiling points and boiling points become festered. And they become out of control. And the next thing you know, we are at Fort Sumpter in 1861. And 5000 artillery shells are being fired. During these times, during our times, we need evermore stability, we need true leadership and true stability. Let us pray for this true leadership and stability that federal and local officials on both sides would do their jobs with the virtue and for the good of the country as a whole and not their personal ambition, that they choose their words and acts precisely with some thought behind them. Because as we are on the verge of all these boiling points based on the events in our time. Let us go back and study our actual American history and read the books that accurately describe that history. 

Not not Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States which is inflammatory rubbish. It's written by a Marxist who hated the United States, no doubt about it. It's tragic and most regrettable to that book has been read by so many students and so many public school systems across our country. Pure indoctrination. Check out Mojo minute 129 where we debunked his garbage is garbage view of American history. It's extremely tragic. However, one such very good book that we should read over and over and over again, is these this excellent book that we cover today, David Potter's the impending crisis, America before the Civil War 1848 to 1861. There's tons of footnotes. In complete this book on Audible, like I did get the real book, check out the footnotes, tons of avenues to go down with thought, and comprehension and understanding. 

So as we wrap up, let us read and understand our Civil War history, frankly, so we can keep our heads about us during these most turbulent of times. Because as David Potter reminds us, the balance sheet of this sectional conflict can be extremely, extremely tragic. Unquote. And we can and should avoid another civil war during these perilous times.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at T Mojo academy.com where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on