Results 1 to 14 of 14

Thread: Southern Agrarians- did America Lose its Liberty When it Lost its Agrarian Roots?

  1. #1

    Southern Agrarians- did America Lose its Liberty When it Lost its Agrarian Roots?

    ​I did this thread in the history section but i think it better fits here.


    Southern Agrarians and Northern Industrialists

    “White folks you can have your automobiles, paved streets and lights. You can have your buses, and street cars, and hot pavement and tall buildings cause I aint got no use for em no way. I tell you what I do want--I want my old cotton bed and the moonlight shining through the willow trees, and the cool grass under my feet while I run around catching lightening bugs. I want to feel the sway of the old wagon, going down the red, dusty road, and listening to the wheels groaning as they roll along. I want to sink my teeth into that old ash cake. White folks, I want to see the boats passing up and down the Alabammy river and hear the slaves singing at their work. I want to see dawn break over the black ridge and the twilight settle over the place spreading an orange hue. I want to walk the paths through the woods and see the rabbits and the birds and the frogs at night. But they took me away from that a long time ago... Maybe someday I'll get to go home. They tell me that when a person crosses over that river, the Lord gives him what he wants. I don told the Lord I don't want nothing much---only my home, white folks. I don't think that's much to ask for. I suppose he'll send me back there. I been waiting a long time for him to call.”
    -Former slave Aunt Clara Davis Alabama Slave Narratives

    In 1860 many in the north would agree with the “southern agrarian view” as this had been the dominate American view. The northern industrialist view is aimed at a relative few but influancial, rich, industrialist, politicians and educators from the north, that imposed themselves on the south [and north]. The southern agrarian view was not against profit at all, but that it should be encouraged, and not punished, including industrialist. The southerners were simply against certain philosophies that were forced on them from the north. The south, the land of cotton, with its agrarian ways, was very much at odds with northern industry and conformity of the time. While slavery of course played a part in this, it ran much deeper. However slavery did allow agrarian life to compete with industrialization, and even surpass it. Many free states individuals, were fully agrarian and anti-industrial.

    “Slavery . . . was part of the agrarian system but only one element and not an essential one...The fundamental and passionate ideal for which the south stood and fell was the ideal of an agrarian society”
    -Historian Frank Owsley 1930

    What The Old South Stood for- The American Founders View

    “For hundreds of years prior to the industrial revolution, families were self-reliant, integrated units of efficient production. This historical model of family-based production is referred to as the family economy. In a properly functioning family economy, every member of the family—father, mother, children, grandparents, and any extended family living under the same roof—plays a role in making the family as self-sufficient as possible. Everyone works for the good of the family. Everyone is needed. This model is naturally suited to farming and homesteading. It was the norm in agrarian America prior to the mid-1800s. Within the family economy, mothers and fathers taught their children the many different skills associated with their way of life. The whole idea was to train children to be productive members of the family as children so they would become productive, self-reliant leaders (and teachers) of their own families one day. The virtues of thrift, hard work, family closeness, and religious faith, were integral elements of these families of yore and produced men and women of great character. The primary objective of the family economy was not to make a lot of money. It was to sustain a way of life. Indeed, most farming was subsistence farming, which means the family produced just about everything they needed, bartered for what they did not have, and did not require a lot of money.”
    -The southern Agrarian [Southern agrarian.com]

    “Ours is an agricultural people, and God grant that we may continue so. We never want to see it otherwise. It is the freest, happiest, most independent , and, with us, the most powerful condition on earth”
    -Montgomery Daily Confederation 1858


    From the time of the founders to the 1820's north and south, from all political persuasions, agreed that the agrarian way of life was best for man, and to be his own ruler and free. A man who was his own boss, and self sufficient. Was independent, free thinking, self reliant, and a liberty minded people that govern themselves and will not be easily be enslaved by the government. Virginian John Taylor argued “unpressed and predominate agricultural population was the only possible permanent basis for free government”

    “From Jefferson many of the southern populist learned the importance of a rural community of yeoman farmers only these enjoyed sufficient moral virtue to guarantee the consonance of the American republic”
    -Bruce Palmer Man over Money The Southern Populist Critique of American Capitalism University of North Carolina Press

    Early Americans “Celebrated the countryside, preferring a society of farmers and merchants organized around villages and towns to a society based on manufacturing industries organized around cities” agrarian life propagated “a due sense of Independence, liberty and justice.” The founders saw the European cities as cities “produced vast poor turned into mobs bent on the destruction of liberty”
    -Robert William Fogel The Rise and Fall of American Slavery

    One South Carolinian stated “Those who labor the earth, are the chosen people of god.” A southerner called agriculture “The art of all arts, science of all sciences, and the life of all life.” One Southern newspaper warned its readers to “stay in the country” and “be free to think and act.” There views were “of an old American tradition, one that we find imbeded in American thought almost from the earliest days.” The south liked their old tradition's and wished to keep to them. The south was following the dominate Jeffersonian Agrarian view that represented conservative, rural, middle class America. Its natural enemies were seen as urbanization and industrialization. This is in part why America lagged behind England a half century in the industrial revolution.

    “Their rural background and their Jeffersonian-Jacksonian heritage, meant that southern populists invariably considered farmers the most important group in society”
    -Bruce Palmer Man over Money

    “In cities and factories, the vices of our nature are more fully displayed” and “Agrarian life promotes a generous hospitality, a high and perfect courtesy, a lofty spirit of independence...and all the nobler virtues and heroic traits”
    -James Hammond 1842 South Carolina

    “Agriculture was their favorite and natural pursuit”
    -E Merton Coulter The confederate States of America A History of the South

    By 1830 two very separate cultures were emerging in America. The south was about individualism and freedom from interference by the government. The north had a growing central government at the cost of individuality. The south disliked the northern urbanization, industrialization, centralization in politics and society and wished to defend “Individualism against trend of baseless conformity in an increasing mechanized and dehumanized society.” They were farmers who loved the soil and land Believing industry and “progress” was harmful to the society and to nature. Believing family, religion [where the church was central to the community] , small town community, individualism, and responsibility of raising children right, was more important than material wealth and “progress.”

    “1850's southern agrarians had mounted a counter attack against the gospel of industrialization...The south created a cultural climate unfriendly to industrialization ”
    -James McPherson Battle cry of freedom

    In reaction to the drastic changes in the north the south dug in deeper on Jeffersonian agrarianism, they “wanted to turn back the clock largely based on their bible belt mentality.” While the south maintained its % of farmers, the northern percentage of farmers dropped dropped 30% since the founding of the union. One English observer of the time said southerners believed labor should be confined to agriculture, wishing to leave the manufactures to Europe and the north. In doing so, unlike the north, the south maintained the American founders Jeffersonian Agrarian society.

    “The north changed radically after the founders of the united states, especially in the 1850's”
    -Dr. Clyde Wilson Professor of History University of South Carolina

    “The South's concept of republicanism had not changed in three-quarters of a century; the North's had. With complete sincerity the South fought to preserve its version of the republic of the Founding Fathers--a government of limited powers that protected the rights of property, including slave property, and whose constituency comprised an independent gentry and yeomanry of the white race undisturbed by large cities, heartless factories, restless free workers, and class conflict."
    -James M. McPherson "Ante-bellum Southern Exceptionalism:

    “little dynamic change, weather through immigration, the growth of new cities or new industrial manufacturing, was allowed to come in and stir up the pot.”
    -Kevin Morrow The Civil war

    Even the industry in the south was almost universally started by, and run by northerners. Recent migrants from the north who went south to start new businesses.

    “The railroads enterprises, the banks, and the corporations are founded and devised by them” [new englanders]
    -Roger Burlingame March of the Iron men a Social History of Union

    Negative Effects of Northern Industrialism on the Agrarian South

    “The Southern Agrarians bemoaned the increasing loss of Southern identity and culture to industrialization. They believed that the traditional agrarian roots of the United States, which dated back to the nation's founding in the 18th century (with many of America's most important founding fathers being farmers), were important to its nature. ….. U.S. that were leading it to become more urban, national/international, and industrial. …. The stance was anti communistic ... and denounced "progress"
    -Conservative Series Agrarian Wiki

    Industrial Slave Wager Work

    “wage labor was a from of dependency that seemed to contradict the republican principles on which the country was founded” the core of republicanism, was liberty...Thomas Jefferson had defined the essence of liberty as Independence, which required the ownership of productive property. A man dependent on others for a living could never be truly free, nor could a dependent class constitute the basis of a republican government...wage laboururs were also dependent, that was why Jefferson feared the devilment of industrial capitalism with its need for wage labors”
    -James McPherson Battle cry of freedom

    One half of them prefers hiring their servants for life, and the other by the hour.”
    -Englishmen Thomas Carlisle noted on differences between northern Industrial worker and southern slave

    “That in some countries the laboring poor were called freedmen, in others they were called slaves, but that the difference as to the state was imaginary only”
    -John Adams


    The south and the founders condemned the “slave wager work” of industrialization and factories. conformity and industrial work would produce a compliant people who would become servants of their boss and in turn, the government. The south was “unwilling to be dehumanized, to be reduced to cogs in a labor process that seemed as inhuman as the machines.” The founders were “concerned as rural conservatives about the dangers to the republic from hordes of propetyless urban workers.” C.S Lewis said of the industrial revolution, it was bad for culture and caused “country farmers who were masters of their own land to become a servant of another in a city with no land.” J.R.R Toliken saw industrial workers as “modern slavery for totalitarianism governments using people as tools for own finical gain” he as southerns felt “men should work with their hands not with machines.”

    The north “Transitioned from independent, home based production, to wage based factory labor viewed by many as a form of slavery incompatible with republican democracy itself”
    -Kevin Morrow The Civil war

    The progressives and northern industrialist wanted collectivism and complete control of the individual. Industrial work needs, and progressive politicians wanted, a populous that is complacent, complaint, non thinking, conformist, dependent, and collectivist who were willing to give up self and individual liberty for collective needs. Men that work not as self sufficient individuals on a farm, but an equal part in a collective factory work “all in it together” working to the same end product, often same pay socialism/communism for each job. Further they needed men that are not free, but work as a dependent “slave wager work” Fit for urban and industrial work. Supporting a stronger central government and increasing dependent block of enslaved voters. “Their dependence on their employees for a living made clerks, and tradesmen slaves to their masters politics.”

    “We live in an industrial economy. Some say we are actually now in a service economy. If so, it is still a part of the industrial paradigm. In such an economy, the typical family is not a producer of goods. It is a collection of individual consumers. This is the way the industrial providers like it to be. They want everyone to be dependent on them. But that is contrary to the historical pattern.
    -The southern Agrarian

    “The game plan of northern industrialist, who were fighting not for black freedom, but for the freedom to exploit and devolve the American market...The only people who could say “free at last” after the civil war were northern industrialist and their allies”
    -Lerone Vennett JR Forced into Glory Abraham Lincolns White Dream

    The northern industrialist were not against slavery, they were against the southern version of slavery. They wanted not a southern white man to be master, but they wanted the government/industrialist to be the proper master. In this form of slavery the new master would be the factory manager. Dependence on wages robbed a man of his independence. With industrial “wage slavery” There was no difference than slave labor. The boss was like the slave owner, he determined hours of toil, pace of work, division of labor, levels of wages, and could hire and fire at will. The workers were in lockstep and turned into machines. This new form of slavery was in fact more profitable for the master since he was no longer responsible for providing food, shelter, and medical support for his slaves. Comparing slavery with industrial factory workers John Haley of Maine stated

    “Our plan is more profitable [non slave factory workers] we take care of no children or sick people, except as paupers, while owners of slaves have to provide for them from birth till death”
    -John Haley, 17th Maine

    Instead of leisure in our work, we know work 9-5 And became Slaves to the clock. We are than to turn off our “worker side” and turn on our “Leisure side.” However man is not a machine and cannot do such a thing. It leaves us unsatisfied with either. The Industrial revolution produced its super rich and multiple the poor while it shrank the middle class. The super rich were seen as a threat by the founders to liberty because they might influence the poor with their wealth [see George Soros]. Dependent poor also attacked liberty as they would seek government to redistribute from the working class to them as dependents. “Equal rights to all- special privileges to none” was a cry from the agrarians. In the agrarian society no-one who worked, would be poor.

    “The difference between us is, that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among our people, and not too much employment either. Yours are hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily compensated, which may be proved in the most painful manner, at any hour in any street of your large towns. Why, you meet more beggars in one day, in any single street of the city of New York, than you would meet in a lifetime in the whole South.”
    -“Cotton is King” speech, James Henry Hammond

    Money Over Man

    “The almighty dollar is everything with them [The north]”
    -The Richmond Dispatch

    “Whenever we lose entirely the belief in human accountability to eternal powers, whenever we are possessed utterly by the belief that life ends at the grave, and therefore we must eat, drink, and be be merry. Than indeed, are we doomed. Money will be the god we worship....civilized savages whose only care, purpose, effect, religion, is to get money”
    -Bruce Palmer Man Over Money

    The south disliked materialism and what they called the “worship of progress.” The new industrial America often brought with it materialism and the worship of money on a large scale. Society began to place money above human beings. Humans became servants of money and industry, rather than the other way around. “When money became more valuable than labor, gold more esteemed than human beings, the society began to break down.” Virginian R.L Dabney called Northerners “Modern materialistic infidels.” People were know judged by their accumulated wealth, witch was now seen as money. Money was suppose to be a tool “not an end” itself, wealth had previously little to do with money before the civil war.

    “Northern Industrialist has attempted to sell happiness in little boxes of materialism”
    -The South was Right James Kennedy and Walter Kennedy

    In places like Communist china were humans have little value and instead they value government wealth and production over humans, the evils materialism and atheism are fully realized. In the recent Olympics held in China they shut down the industry and factories for two weeks just to clear the air for people coming in from around the world so they could breath. You have to wear masks in many places in china because the air is toxic. Millions die each year from air pollution around world because of the devalue of man and overvalue of industry. People work to death in factories and are treated as slaves. In china some factories have safety nets to catch employees trying to commit suicide. These results were seen and predicted by the agrarians as the “evils of industrialization” Southerns disliked the advertisements that industry brought who try to convince people to buy things they otherwise would not need or want. Southerns pointed out how industrializing also brought high unemployment. They was also concerned with the materialistic consumer attitude that was growing in society. Southerners hated advertisement that came from industrialization trying to convince people to buy what they otherwise would not need.

    Urbanization and Industrialization's Effects on Society and the Family

    “the Industrial Rev*olution changed the economic form and moral superstructure of European and American life. Men, women, and children left home and family, authority and unity, to work as individuals, individually paid, in factories built to house not men but machines...children no longer were economic assets; marriage was delayed; premarital continence became more difficult to maintain. The city offered every discouragement to marriage, but it provided every stimulus and facility for sex. Women were “emancipated”-i.e., industrialized; and contraceptives enabled them to separate intercourse from pregnancy. The authority of father and mother lost its economic base through the growing individualism of industry. The rebellious youth was no longer constrained by the surveillance of the village; he could hide his sins in the protective anonymity of the city crowd. The progress of science raised the authority of the test tube over that of the crosier; the mechanization of economic production suggested mechanistic materialistic philosophies; education spread religious doubts; morality lost more and more of its supernatural supports. The old agricultural moral code began to die”
    -The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant


    Southerners generally disliked the nervous life of cities, they were defenders of the small town farming and plantation community. large cities in the north brought a “revolution of culture.” The industrial revolution caused the break up of the extended family. It brought people away from the small farm community to go live in a city. Instead of the family farm passed from generation to generation. Kids starting being educated and influenced by schools/media/government and less by parents. Kids started being raised away from the home. Before the civil war only 5% of woman worked. Families were self sufficient units. The industrial revolution changed us into consumers, rather than producers. It started the woman's rights activist movement, causing the break up of the family unit. Pregnancy and nursing children, instead of a boost to the family economy, know was a burden. Gone were the days were woman we special and coveted and increasingly seen as objects. As one English observer to the old south said “woman were worshiped.”

    “agrarian lifestyle is very constant with and supportive of the biblical model of family. The abandonment of the agriculture family economy during the industrial revolution is partly responsible for much of the breakdown of the christian family and morals”
    -Noah Sanders Born Again Dirt farming to the Glory of God

    “Southern rural, evangelical protestant community to criticize another world they found devolving around them- an impersonal, amoral, urban centered, non southern, industrial society”...frequently and righteously attacked cities. The home of this new society...moral condemnation of city life remained a constant theme. Condition unique to urban areas prevented the development of good citizens ”
    -Bruce Palmer Man over Money The Southern Populist Critique of American Capitalism

    Two Views of man

    “The family has to be torn down if the Gnostic value of the individual as a unity of homogeneous class is to be established....attempts to reconstruct human nature so that the individual may be pulled from his sustaining community membership and then artificially reassembled”
    -Why the South Will Survive

    Many viewed industrialization as a spiritual problem. Since it accepted materialism,atheism, progressivism and other isms. The new industrialist view was that man was no longer a sinner, he makes mistakes, but is essentially good matured and means well. Man just needs education and his environment modified to correct “wrong behavior” [decided by them]. “Their goal, which they have already reached, has always been the transformation of our image of man.” They also sought to destroyed the moral fiber [biblical morality] that held families and America together. The south believed that man, far from being a god like genius of unlimited power progressing upward, was instead a fallible, finite, creature who functions best in a society that took account of his limitations. In the old south, men were individuals aware of their dependence on god. The responsibility of parenting the child was the family and not some external places such as public schools. The responsibility of man in society was to care for family and neighbors, not “some creature called society” they felt we were not “all in this together” but all individuals and responsible for our selves and our local communities.

    “Agrarians attacked secular aspects of industrialization reduction of man and nature to efficiency and material causes in the interest of production”
    -Why the South Will Survive

    Negative Environmental Effects

    “the idea that man can control nature, and that nature concerns only matter and energy, has lost belief in the divine order of the universe....materialism with all its accompanying isms is a sorry substitute to in religious terms, we have lost the covenant with god, we perforce to practice “magic.”
    -Why the South Will Survive

    The south viewed the industrial, humanistic, materialistic, atheistic, Marxists worldview of northern industrialist towards God's creation as unnatural, and as denying God's stewardship of the earth to man. It put man as know the highest being of the universe. It separated god from his creation, thus man was the ultimate authority. Whatever was good for man regardless of its effects on Gods creation was permissible. know that creation is viewed as only matter to be manipulated for the benefits of man. Since man was know seen as absolute, his absolute totalitarian control of nature will ultimately result once god is sperated from his creation. Atheistic Man would lose any sense of calling of stewardship from the creator, enabling man to build factories using deadly chemicals and poisons pollute the country side at will.

    “ [Marxism] nature itself becomes merely prime matter for the exsersize of ones will. There are no longer any strings attached to nature...the god of nature”
    -Why the south will survive

    Southerners thought industry had taken man out of his natural environment to go live in cities that removed him from the natural world “In place of beauty and truth he had erected a new ideal, progress.” Man was “losing touch with natural world aesthetic and religious reality” in industrial habitation “we receive the illusion of having power over nature and lose the sense of nature as something mysterious and contingent.” Man use to have respect for gods creation, still getting material necessities, but modern and northern society “wages war on nature.” Some viewed industrialization as machine vs nature. While many southerns “Resisted the dominion of the machine, persisted in its agriculture ways.” Harmony between humans and nature was destroyed. That is how you end up with southern folk lore such as John Henry

    “John Henry is a symbol of physical strength and endurance, of exploited labor, of the dignity of a human being against the degradations of the machine age”
    Folk song John Henry
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUO1gGyHd-8

    With the modern mass production food we eat. Instead of eating healthy original created food, it is mass produced, genetically modified [GMO- God Move Over] and covered with chemicals. Almost all common illnesses, disease and 70% of cancers can be prevented by the foods we eat. These nutritional deficient foods are the byproduct of the industrial revolution and the change from local small town agrarian life, to conformity, urbanization and mass production. When people around the world switched from their natural farm/nature food to mass production/processed foods, the same problems with health followed. Not to mention the many negative effects these chemicals have done to the creation.

    Negative Political Change That Resulted From Industrial Revolution

    “We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
    -C.S Lewis

    “The industrial revolution...worked to undermine the viability of the republican community”
    -Clyde Wilson From Union to Empire

    To the old time southerner, Politically the industrial revolution brought about many negatives. The idea of progress, that man no longer needed god and could do for himself. Caused many such as in France, to look to the new savior humanism/man and government. Being the first time there was large numbers of atheist and France almost completely converted. The south viewed the differences as antique conservatism vs american progressiveism. The book I'll take my stand was almost titled “Tracts against communism.” They believed agriculture was the best check against socialism that will follow in excessive industrial nations. What they called Sovistism ,communism, socialism were the final stages of industrialization. Urban populations were ideal for progressivism.

    “Urban populations without any real religion or culture, like much of the U.S today, cling to government as the source of identity and the meaning of their exsitance”
    -Clyde Wilson Nullification Reclaiming the Consent of the Governed

    “It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties”
    -Confederate General Patrick Cleburne Dec 1863

    They felt the progressive, communist, socialist industrialist was transforming the Union, and the south. They said industrial and big business were the inventors of “centralization of government in america” and “ the true soviets or communist are the industrialist themselves they would have government set up an economic super organization which than would become the government.” They felt the south was becoming more like Russia economically “we therefore look at communism with menace indeed.” Leaders in the north were beginning to deny America was a confederation of states, they began to talk of it as a national regime, with central powers of course in the north.

    “The central issue in the civil war, to which all other questions including slavery and centralization were subordinate, was the movement of American society into modernization. Modernization among other things, implies economic, political, and cultural centralization and nationalism. To modernization the south provided a formidable obstacle”
    -Clyde Wilson From Union to Empire

    “Because of the loss of the covenant with god....they all accept that the trouble is only a matter of managing the machine of state, we have forgot...that we are made in the image of god”
    -Why the South Will Survive

    During the civil war with a large expansion of the federal government, political bureaucracy with a life of its own would becomes a major player in American politics. This was almost unknown in America agrarian dominated days. The new urbanized mass society in which operated by bureaucrats, corporations, or governmental, became as cancers on the body politics.

    “Bureaucrats hate the quintessential American culture of family farms. The independence-centered, ‘pull yourself up by your boot straps’ emphasis on responsibility goes against everything they believe in. Simply put, people who think for themselves and work hard don’t live off the government . . . Farming is the essence of our loyalty to our families and our God.
    -Josiah Cantrall


    But maybe above all, the south felt it was losing its individualism. When rail, road, media, and other ways were used to connect distant lands, people became more alike and society began to change. Diversity was being lost and all were conforming to one set standard of life and thought. People stopped thinking for themselves and were told what to think, by fewer and fewer conformed outlets.

    “As a nation, we have not got any better on the slavery issue. Patrick Henry would have called what we have know slavery”
    -Joel Salatin modern Agrarian

    Lincolns Marxists

    “Most of these men believed the war was a continuation, in a different venue, of the central Europe revolutions of 1848”
    -John Dwyer the war between the states

    “Lincoln would not have won his election without foreigners”
    -Clyde Wilson

    In the book Lincolns Marxists it documents how after multiple failed socialist/Marxists revolution in Europe around 1848. These socialist migrated to America and took the fight to America. These immigrants, often German, became newspaper editors, or founders of newspapers, and started converting northerners. These marxists introduced “class struggle” into American politics or “class warfare” today, At odds with all men created equal. They sought to change the American form of government. They sided, volunteered and financially supported the centralizing party and government of Abraham Lincoln. These changes of course were disliked and rejected by the south. In 1860 ¼ of every northerner was a recent immigrant. Between 1830-1860 American whites increased by 1/3.

    “An influx of German refugees with universality idea swelled the ranks of the new republican party in the 1850's”
    -Clyde Wilson From Union to Empire

    “Was a profound conservative movement. It was in fact a counterrevolution against the excess of northern demagoguery, mob rule, and dangerous fanaticism imported from Europe”
    -E. merton Coulter The confederate States of America Louisiana State University Press

    The Origins Of Progressiveism In America And The Origins Of The Public Education System In America

    “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”
    -Abraham Lincoln

    “A general state education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another, and the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in government.”
    -John Stuart Mill, 19th Century English Economist, Author of On Liberty, Principles of Political Economy

    The origins of progressivism in America started around 1820. A ideology and philosophy unknown and unthinkable to guard against by the founding fathers. The goal being to transform America into a socialist, communist utopia accomplished mainly through the education system. Socialist like Robert Owen in the 1820's formed Americas first communist secular colony in Indiana. To get rid of all religion he believed was the cause of all evil, to “educate without religion.” Education had previously been done by local church or homeschooling.

    “The public school movement, or statist education, did not exists until the 1830's”
    -Al Benson Jr and Walter Kennedy Lincolns Marxist

    The first Public school in America was in Boston in 1822, because they knew a public education system [for all] would be the best way for a government to control and change public opinion. Speaking of the first public school James carter a Harvard education “reformer” said

    “A state controlled teachers collage [ government approved teachers] can be a engine to sway the public sentiment, morals and the public religion more powerful than any in the possession of the government”
    -James Carter Harvard 1795–1849

    “The conversion of american education into a instrument of statism was the most important step into socialism that a society can take”
    -R.L Rushdooney the Nature of the American System

    In government controlled schools, the teachers would be trained to do government bidding. Public school would became training ground for the industrial revolution that, like big government with voters, needed “Obedient factory workers.” The department of agriculture worked with public schools so

    “Future generations must be made into pragmatic American materialists suitable for labor and production...Education turned from creating good men and woman to creating obedient tools”
    -Clyde Wilson professor of History University of South Carolina

    Later the education system would be influence by Karl Marx communist manifesto in 1848 that would further change America education.

    Tenth Plank: Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
    -Communist Manifesto

    Part of Marx's goals were to destroy the family, free education for all, [Public government education only] and to destroy home school as a option. Later G Stanley Hall applied Darwinian evolution to public schools. Training kids as evolved animals with age segregation, grade based training, unlike the early american one room school house. Further changed were made by those like John Dewey. The ultimate goal was to replace God with government. It was warned against by the founders of America that government was limited and should not control education, as James Madison warned a unchecked federal government would do, yet assuring that our government was not of this kind, but tied down by the constitution.

    “If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the “general welfare,” and are the sole and supreme judges of the “general welfare,” [then Congress might] take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than [the] post-roads; in short, everything from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police would be thrown under the power of [the federal] Congress.”

    With government and industrialist in control of education. Of course they will seek their own. This is why the education system has been the foremost power in indoctrination of America youth into becoming children of the state. To create generations of children literally “Brain washed into being loyal to authority” that new authority of course is socialist government. Creating complacent, complaint, non thinking, conformist, dependent, collectivist willing to give up self and individual liberty for collective needs. Industry and government education are so connected, that Abbot Lawrence advised a friend in Virginia who wanted to emulate new england industry “you cannot exspect to develop your resources without a general [public] system of education.”

    “The federal government has increased its control over the American education system...it is simply not in the federal governments self interest to teach the public that it is advantageous to place limits on the governments powers...Government always uses public education to aggrandize itself”
    -Thomas J Dilorenzo Lincoln Unmasked

    “American children have been taught to celebrate this betrayal of the founding fathers..The vast bulk of Americans proceed through twelve years of government funded education [by an interesting coincidence] teaches them all about the wonders of federal government, how lost they'd be without it, and how foolish it would be to worry that the constitution might not authorize most of what it does. Portrayed as a benevolent force innocently pursuing the common good....cost less benefits granted by selfless crusaders for justice...The modern state trains its citizens to think otherwise. When another institution attempts to resists the encroachments of the central government of a modern state, it is guilty of treason. What was once a virtue now becomes the gravest possible crime”
    -Tomas Woods Nullification How to Resist federal tyranny in the 21st Century

    I Pledge Alliance to...big Government?

    Even something that seems as innocent and American as the pledge of alliance has socialist roots. Being written in 1892 by a radical christian socialist Reverend Francis Bellamy of Boston who was removed from the pulpit for his view that Jesus was a socialist. Bellamy said a purpose of the pledge was to achieve his cousin Edward Bellamy totalitarian fantasy in America. “The true reason” was to indoctrinate children into the idea of America as a “perpetual” “one nation indivisible” consolidated, omnipotent state. It was an attempt to rid America of any lasting ideas of state sovereignty, to help rid Americans of alliance to states, and instead to the central government. To make citizens love their government through indoctrination and blind faith to the state “patriotism.” Originally this pledge was recited with “their arms outstretched, palms up, similar to how roman citizens were required to hail Cesar” This custom was dropped in the 1940's when it was found to be to similar to the Nazi salute to Hitler and of Italian fascists.

    Think of how many young men have gone to war for the government and died in combat, out of a false sense of patriotism to the federal government. I am as patriotic as any, but not to the government, but to the founders, the land, the people and principles that this nation was founded on.

    Opposition From Southerners Warning's From Dabney to Christians

    “It is not true that the civil authority is entitled to shape a people to suit itself. The opposite is true, the people should shape civil authority”
    -R.L Dabney on Secular Education

    Public school influenced by government being alien to American history and constitutional powers first coming on stage in 1822 of course had opposition. Opposition would continue for another 120 years north and south. Those who opposed the progressive takeover of education in America such as influential theologian Virginian R.L Dabney [On the staff of stonewall Jackson] in his book “On secular education.” He asked who controls education? though American history and colonial times it has been first the parents and the church. The state had not the constitutional right. He said liberals of the mid to late 1800's insists the state should control education and take control from the parents and the church. Not surprised he said “Does not the liberal pervert that other education agency, the press?” He warned “ If the state were to take control and educate citizens, the government would embrace the wildest communism” and set people against Christianity and accept “absurdities of materialism.”He felt it was Totalitarianism to make education universally done by the state. He said the “State is giving under the guise of non christian education , an anti-christian training.” He warned christian parents that to educate without god and try to fill one hour a week on Sundays will make students see god as a oddity. He warned of a society that would educate without the bible “To educate the mind of a bad man without correcting his morals is to put a sword into the hands of a maniac.” He quoted John Lock as saying “All the education in the world will do nothing but make the student worse or more dangerous.” This is the opposite thought of modern education philosophy, that does not believe in original sin, but that man must just be educated correctly and “correct” behavior will follow. Dabney said the way in witch government education would be set up was “mechanical”[Industry]. He argued, public education would begin to teach its students not truth, but the values and virtues which were palatable to society at large [Political correctness] how to conform all of society to best get along and be complaint with the government needs at this time a unthinking, compliant , industrial worker populous.

    Dabney also predicted the results of our modern education system in many ways more than just the above. Dabney could see the logical conclusion of the North's aggressive stance against the South and its advancement of government education upon the populace over 160 years ago. He said it would be used as a tool against Christ. He predicted they would become thoroughly secular and antithetical to Christianity. Dabney said “We have seen that their complete secularization is logically inevitable.” “Christians must prepare themselves then, for the following results: All prayers, catechisms, and Bibles will ultimately be driven out of the schools.”

    He said “If education becomes controlled by the state it will be perverted to serve an ideological faction [ liberalism] filling their minds with error and passion [ look at today children who are trained to think and react on emotion and truth is relative] in place of truth and right.” He predicted history would be “mutilated and falsified” that “It would leave young students totally ignorant of his own ancestry” [ Because it would leave Christianity out of its teachings including history see american heritage series by David Barton at wallbuilders.com]. He predicted Huxley will become educations prophet not moses on origins. He predicted censorship on what is allowed to be taught stricter than Rome [Catholicism]. Predicted baseless morality and moral decay to follow just what we have today, no moral foundation taught, so loss of morality. Government School he said, would become one sided on what it teaches. He also Predicted schools will become corrupt in morals and wasteful of money with Christianity kicked out . He predicted fewer believers and lower numbers going to church as result, and as said above truth will not matter over conformity and political correctness.
    Last edited by 1stvermont; 07-19-2017 at 05:29 PM.



  2. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  3. #2
    How the South was Changed by Northern Industrialist Educators and Progressives

    “There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind.”
    -Prologue Gone With The Wind


    “By his subsequent bitter attacks on aspects of Southern culture that they valued, such as its agrarianism, conservatism, and religiosity...They sought to confront the widespread and rapidly increasing effects of modernity, urbanism, and industrialism on American (but especially Southern) culture and tradition. “
    -Southern agrarian conservative series Wikipedia

    Northern industrialist started buying politicians to vote against southern agriculture as many industrialist wanted to “Uproot” the economical system of the south. “The whole fabric of southern society must be changed.” Northerners forced out southern newspapers and installed northern ones to help sway the public opinion. The anti slavery political party that had been small and driven by Christianity, now became anti slavery based on “The pocketbook” and a powerful political force able to control national agenda. So war happened. After the war, the north imposed its ways as best it could on the south. They did this in a few ways media and public school conforming thought to curriculum based on northern industrial philosophy.

    “Washington controlled curriculum. To insure a uniformity nationalized”
    -John Codes Destroying the republic Jabez Curry and the Reeducation of the old South

    The government education system set up after civil war was to change the southern culture. As a teacher at a convention in Harrisburg PA 1865 called the civil war “A war of education and parasitism against ignorance and barbarism [the south].” Education being largely homeschooling or done by church was now public school by government standards, simplified and standardized for all for industrial work. The education system was run like a factory and people are the product for future factory work. At that time northern industrialist thought their wanted socialism was possible, but must first “Remake” the human nature through education. That would result in “Overwhelming social, economic, political change, so that the contrast between earlier ways [Old south confederacy] and later were dramatically visible.”

    “When our youth learn to read similar books, similar lessons, we shall become one people, possessing one organic nationality”
    -Northern senator J.P Wickersmah 1865

    In 1861 congress passed the Morrill act to use federal money for education with the purpose of reeducating the conquered areas of the south, it was based on northern ideas and principles and to teach “Respect for national authority.” “The forces of centralized federalism had at last seized control of congress.”

    “The role of the national government is to mold the character of the American people”
    -Northern senator Justin Morrill behind the first public school education bill

    “we will compel the states to do what they will not do” and to “form one homogeneous American people....after New England”
    -George Hoar Massachusetts 1870 Bill to support National education

    They even moved some southern agrarians to the north to transform them.

    “The transition through living in the midst of the industries of the north, was very great”
    -General John Eaton a Creator of the Freedmens Bureaue

    The same thing was done on native americans by the northern industrialist. “Native Americans were viewed as barbarians because of their non materialistic values” The federal government sought to overturn their power and than remake the remaining natives into red copies of new englanders.” In a northerner's words to “Change the disposition of the Indian to one more mercenary and ambitious to obtain riches, and teach him to value position consequent upon the possession of riches” Of course as in I'll take my stand, southerners were concerned and saw results by the 1920's of what they said was young southerners going to northern lifestyle/industry/conformity through what they called “Propaganda to southern children from public schools, universities, the press and all agents of institutionalization.”

    “The influence of industrialist and bankers...was now permanent”
    -Clyde Wilson

    This Worldview Is In America Today

    “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.”
    - H.L Mencken


    In modern times. The USA government/education system still views mankind as one fits all producers in a assemble line They see what they can get out of them, to produce for the benefit of the country or political wants. Our education system is still controlled by the progressives,socialist,conformist type, who still run education on the old industrial system. Our current education system is still based on the outdated 1860's industrial system, to create a compliant worker class for industry, used by the same progressives and northern industrialist as after the civil war. It is still used to create young dependents on the state [See the documentaries - Common Core Building the machine /Indoctrination public schools and the decline of Christianity in America / Indoctrinate U / Agenda/ America were would the world be without her/ The wallbuilders American heritage series and building on the American heritage series by David Barton /You tube videos RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms/ and Education Is a System of Indoctrination of the Young - Noam Chomsky/ ].

    “The only people who could say “free at last” after the civil war were northern industrialist and their allies”
    -Lerone Vennett JR Forced into Glory Abraham Lincolns White Dream

    “Created a population able to read the newspapers but not wise enough to see through them...education had nothing to do with learning and everything to do with control of the population by their betters”
    -Clyde Wilson University of South Carolina professor of History

    Agrarianism is Still Alive


    “If a community...is groaning under industrialism, and well aware that it is an evil disposition. It must find the way to throw it off”
    -Ill Take my stand

    “Southerness provides a substrate beneath the overlay of functional and utilitarian relationships imposed by a modern industrial economy. Its evidence can't be kept down, it continues to crop up here, there, and everywhere, like grass through concrete”
    -Why the South will Survive

    The southern agrarian
    http://www.southernagrarian.com/
    Southern Agrarian Society
    http://agrariansociety.weebly.com/
    The deliberate Agrarian
    http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com/
    Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group
    http://www.ssawg.org/
    Also see books under references or by Joel Salatin


    References
    -I'll Take my Stand the South and the Agrarian Tradition by Twelve Southerners 1930 Louisianan State University Press
    -Why the South Will Survive Fifteen Southerners Look at Their Region a half century After I'll Take my Stand University of Georgia press 1981
    --Man over Money The Southern Populist Critique of American Capitalism Bruce Palmer University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill 1980
    -A Defense Of Virginia And The South R.L Dabney 1867 Sprinkle publications
    -The South was Right James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy Pelican 2014
    --From Union to Empire essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition Clyde Wilson The Foundation for American Education Columbia South Carolina 2003
    -When the South was Southern Micheal Andrew Grissom Pelican press 1994
    -Battle Cry of Freedom James McPherson Oxford University Press 1988
    -On Secular Education R.L Dabney Canon press Moscow, Idaho
    -Myths of American slavery Walter D Kennedy 2003 Pelican publishing company
    Born into Slavery
    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/mesnbibVolumes1.html
    --Lincolns Marxists Al Benson Jr and Walter Kennedy Pelican Press 2011
    -The Confederate States of America, 1861--1865: A History of the South by E.Merton coulter 1950
    -Redeeming American Democracy Lessons from the confederate constitution Marshall L. Derosa Pelican press 2007
    -Nullification How to resits Federal tyranny in the 21st Century Thomas Woods Regnery Publishing inc Washington D.C 2010
    -The Yankee Problem An American dilemma Clyde N Wilson Shotwell Publishing Columbia South Carolina 2016
    -Common Core Building the machine 2014
    -Inherit the Land Adventures on the Agrarian Journey Franklin Springs Family Media
    -Indoctrination Public Schools and the Decline of Christianity in America 2011
    -America Imagine the world without her by Dinesh D'souza 2013
    -Indoctrinate U 2007
    -Monumental in search of America national treasure by Kirk Cameron 2012
    -Agenda grinding America down 2010
    -The Cartel- education plus politics = $ http://www.thecartelmovie.com/ 2010
    -Ents Elves and Eriador the environmental vision of J.R.R Tolkien University press of Kentucky
    -Narnia and the fields of Arbol the environmental vision of C.S Lewis University press of Kentucky
    -Southern Agrarians From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Part of a series on conservatismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southe...rther_readings
    -The Real Lincoln Thomas J Dilorenzo Three Rivers press NY NY 2002
    -Forced into Glory Abraham Lincolns White dream by Lerone Bennett JR Johnson publishing Company Chicago reprint 2000 - Lincoln Unmasked what your not suppose to know about Dishonest Abe Thomas J Dilorenzo Three rivers Press Crown Forum 2006

    -The little Green Book of eco fascism the Lefts Plan to Frighten Your kids, Drive up Energy Costs, and Hike Your Taxes James Delingpole 2013 Regnery publications inc
    -The confederate States of America A History of the South E Merton Coulter Louisianan state press
    Last edited by 1stvermont; 07-19-2017 at 05:30 PM.

  4. #3
    Pretty much. Classical liberalism and libertarianism in Murica are Southern "things". The Northern intellectual tradition has traditionally rejected such ideas: it's the home of big finance and industry-not a place friendly to radicalism that shakes up the ancien regime.
    Quote Originally Posted by Torchbearer
    what works can never be discussed online. there is only one language the government understands, and until the people start speaking it by the magazine full... things will remain the same.
    Hear/buy my music here "government is the enemy of liberty"-RP Support me on Patreon here Ephesians 6:12

  5. #4
    None of the freest states are in the South. They are in the Northeast, West, or Midwest. It has been that way for a long time.
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith and stuff View Post
    None of the freest states are in the South. They are in the Northeast, West, or Midwest. It has been that way for a long time.
    Aside from NH, ALL the southern states are more free than the Northeastern states.

    The main problem with freedom in the south is all the damn yankees moving down here. I'm not kidding when I tell you people are shocked to learn I'm from Atlanta; there are hardly any natives left. Atlanta fell to the yankees twice.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Paul View Post
    The intellectual battle for liberty can appear to be a lonely one at times. However, the numbers are not as important as the principles that we hold. Leonard Read always taught that "it's not a numbers game, but an ideological game." That's why it's important to continue to provide a principled philosophy as to what the role of government ought to be, despite the numbers that stare us in the face.
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    This intellectually stimulating conversation is the reason I keep coming here.

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith and stuff View Post
    None of the freest states are in the South. They are in the Northeast, West, or Midwest. It has been that way for a long time.

    I live in the northeast and would find your statements, well inaccurate at best. Care to support the claim?

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Suzanimal View Post
    Aside from NH, ALL the southern states are more free than the Northeastern states.

    The main problem with freedom in the south is all the damn yankees moving down here. I'm not kidding when I tell you people are shocked to learn I'm from Atlanta; there are hardly any natives left. Atlanta fell to the yankees twice.
    Same thing happened to the Southwest. Damn yankees $#@!ed up their place and decided to move out here to try and $#@! up our place.
    Quote Originally Posted by Torchbearer
    what works can never be discussed online. there is only one language the government understands, and until the people start speaking it by the magazine full... things will remain the same.
    Hear/buy my music here "government is the enemy of liberty"-RP Support me on Patreon here Ephesians 6:12

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Suzanimal View Post
    Aside from NH, ALL the southern states are more free than the Northeastern states.

    The main problem with freedom in the south is all the damn yankees moving down here. I'm not kidding when I tell you people are shocked to learn I'm from Atlanta; there are hardly any natives left. Atlanta fell to the yankees twice.
    Yes, NH is freeish compared to other more sheepish states

    PA and likely even MA are freer than several Southern states, certainly freer than WV and KY. But maybe freer than MS, depending on who you ask Anyway, I wasn't saying that all of the Northeastern states are free at all, a lot of them totally suck, suck, suck. It is just that the freest states aren't in the Southeast, well, maybe TN and FL but again that depends who you ask Many of the Southern states were controlled by Democrats until recently, so they still have year and years of work to clean up after decades and decades of Democratic control.

    Here is what most people use (or should use) to compare freedom between the states.
    https://www.freedominthe50states.org/

    Sorry for your loss of Atlanta. It does have some really cool new crosswalks though
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.



  10. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  11. #9
    Blah...no states beholden to federal law are free.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith and stuff View Post
    Yes, NH is freeish compared to other more sheepish states

    PA and likely even MA are freer than several Southern states, certainly freer than WV and KY. But maybe freer than MS, depending on who you ask Anyway, I wasn't saying that all of the Northeastern states are free at all, a lot of them totally suck, suck, suck. It is just that the freest states aren't in the Southeast, well, maybe TN and FL but again that depends who you ask Many of the Southern states were controlled by Democrats until recently, so they still have year and years of work to clean up after decades and decades of Democratic control.

    Here is what most people use (or should use) to compare freedom between the states.
    https://www.freedominthe50states.org/
    I was looking at that map and don't see how the NE, in general, is more free than the south.

    Sorry for your loss of Atlanta. It does have some really cool new crosswalks though
    I think they're kind of gay.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Paul View Post
    The intellectual battle for liberty can appear to be a lonely one at times. However, the numbers are not as important as the principles that we hold. Leonard Read always taught that "it's not a numbers game, but an ideological game." That's why it's important to continue to provide a principled philosophy as to what the role of government ought to be, despite the numbers that stare us in the face.
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    This intellectually stimulating conversation is the reason I keep coming here.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Suzanimal View Post
    I was looking at that map and don't see how the NE, in general, is more free than the south.
    Totally agree. As a region it is certainly not. Neither region does well when considered as a whole. I never meant to suggest that. Sorry for any confusion
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Suzanimal View Post
    Aside from NH, ALL the southern states are more free than the Northeastern states.

    The main problem with freedom in the south is all the damn yankees moving down here. I'm not kidding when I tell you people are shocked to learn I'm from Atlanta; there are hardly any natives left. Atlanta fell to the yankees twice.


    It's all about the kind of freedom you prioritize. For example the North East has some of the most draconian laws on education in the nation. And yes, that includes New Hampshire. If you want to get stoned or whatever you might move up there, if you want to raise a family without asking the nanny state for permission the south or heartland is a far better bet.
    Last edited by William Tell; 07-20-2017 at 09:27 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    It's a balance between appeasing his supporters, appeasing the deep state and reaching his own goals.
    ~Resident Badgiraffe




  15. #13
    What if I told you that you likely will not be free ? There really is not even a foundation for it .

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith and stuff View Post
    None of the freest states are in the South. They are in the Northeast, West, or Midwest. It has been that way for a long time.
    That Freedom Index which you love to quote so much consistently lists OK right up there near the very top, and it's been that way for a long time. OK is just as free as NH, it's just that those freedoms come about in slightly different ways. And having lived in both states, I must say that I actually like OK a LOT better than NH.
    I have an autographed copy of Revolution: A Manifesto for sale. Mint condition, inquire within. (I don't sign in often, so please allow plenty of time for a response)



Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 24
    Last Post: 06-29-2017, 10:55 AM
  2. Bradley Manning: a tale of liberty lost in America
    By twomp in forum U.S. Political News
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 12-04-2012, 01:50 PM
  3. Roots of liberty
    By Bradley in DC in forum U.S. Political News
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 08-24-2008, 06:30 AM
  4. Replies: 2
    Last Post: 02-02-2008, 11:50 PM
  5. Romney didn't just lose the south... he lost it all tonight
    By adpierce in forum CNN/YouTube Debate
    Replies: 32
    Last Post: 11-28-2007, 11:18 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •