The Libertarian Almanac – February

February 1, 10:52 AMDallas Libertarian ExaminerGarry Reed

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Featuring stuff about this month of particular interest to libertarians and freedom-minded folks in general.

February 12 – the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth.

If everything you know about the Sixteenth President is what you were told by your teachers (elementary school, high school, college, graduate school – it makes little difference) you probably have a vision of a Martyred American God with a halo-encircled head holding hands with Jesus as the two of them stroll together across the tops of the whitecaps.

What you likely have never been told is that Lincoln was not only just another politician, he was a particularly virulent specimen of that species. Some call him America’s first dictator.

Thomas DiLorenzo, demythifying
the Lincoln legacy (source: Mises
Institute)

Lincoln’s War (others call this event the Civil War, the War of Northern Aggression, the War of Southern Independence, etc.) was a class war. The arrogant elitists of the Northeast took it upon themselves to first conquer and then colonize the ignorant bumpkins of the South.

Never mind the arguments over slavery and tariffs and state’s rights. Lincoln’s War was fought for the same reasons all wars are fought: wealth, power and ego.

Lincoln committed multiple crimes against the Constitution in general and his fellow countrymen in particular. Just a small sampling includes launching a war without the consent of Congress, blockading Southern ports without a declaration of war, illegally suspending the writ of habeas corpus, arresting thousands of his Northern political opponents, shutting down opposition newspapers, and instituting the first military conscription law in the United States, thereby sparking violent anti-draft riots across Yankeedom which were mercilessly put down by Lincoln's military.

So while Lincoln’s War eventually lead to the 13th Amendment and the freeing of the slaves, Lincoln fought his war with America’s first slave army. As others have put it, Lincoln’s War ended up freeing slaves while enslaving free men. The fact that the Confederacy also disgraced itself with conscription doesn’t exonerate Lincoln.

It’s true that most libertarians have a problem understanding why so many people want to make heroes out of members of the political classes. Libertarians, by definition, do have a problem with authority since, by definition, authorities are authoritarian. Libertarians, after all, don’t go around trying to force their personal agenda on others, but authorities are forever doing just that to libertarians and to everyone else as well.

Knowledgeable libertarians will skip this politically correct public praise party for a hero of Big Government coercion.

Forget Lincoln, Remember the Alamo!

February 14 – Valentine's Day, a date reserved for lovers. Much better to observe than that Feb 12 date.

February 22 - If you still insist on turning politicians into heroes you’ll do much better by reading into the history of another president whose birthday falls on this February date, George Washington. If you truly believe in freedom and individualism you’ll understand why the sixteenth president isn’t fit to share a mountaintop in South Dakota with the first president who, while he certainly owned Black slaves, never conscripted his fellow citizens into his army.

February 23 – Siege of the Alamo began in 1836. Remember, Texans?

February 28 – Another Texas siege to remember began at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco.