Michael J. Totten: A review of American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis by Adam Hochschild SOURCE: Quillette

Newspapers and magazines in foreign languages were likewise banned whether they criticized the government or not.

The Wall Street bombing, Thursday, September 16, 1920, in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. The blast killed thirty people immediately, and another ten died later of wounds sustained in the blast. There were 143 seriously injured, and the total number of injured was in the hundreds. Wikimedia Commons

 

Grover Cleveland: One of the great anti-imperialist presidents written by Daniel Larison SOURCE: Responsible Statecraft

"An old-line Jeffersonian, Cleveland was firmly committed to keeping the U.S. free from foreign entanglements, and as a result he took a jaundiced view of the enthusiasm for overseas expansion that was already building up during his tenure."

The Commerce Clause: Or How the Federal Government Came to Control (Almost) Everything by Amy Pomeroy Criminal Justice Policy Analyst SOURCE: Libertas Institute

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress authority to regulate commerce among the several States. When discussing this topic in the Constitutional Convention, it is evident that the founders were concerned about states erecting trade barriers against each other such as import and export taxes. The ratification debates indicate that the American population also shared a narrow conception of the word “commerce.” Prior to the New Deal, the Supreme Court itself limited the application of the Commerce Clause by distinguishing between “production,” which did not fall under the Commerce Clause, and “commerce,” which did. (See United States v. E.C. Knight Co.)

Supreme Court Targets the Real Enemy by Jeffrey A. Tucker SOURCE: The Epoch Times

 The result of the Federal Reserve fighting inflation.

Origins of Black Wall Street by Shomari Wills SOURCE: Investopedia

"Greenwood’s prosperity became legendary in Black America, with Booker T. Washington dubbing it 'Black Wall Street.'"

Sadly, in the 1921 Race Massacre, much of Greenwood was burned down.

Reparations Get Real by Ramenda Cyrus SOURCE: The American Prospect

 People line up to speak during a Reparations Task Force meeting at Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, April 13, 2022.

The Origin and Operation of the US Administrative State

The Origin and Operation of the US Administrative State 

The Constitution nowhere provides for a permanent class of administrative overlords to whom Congress could outsource its authority. It nowhere said that there would exist a machine technically under the Executive branch that the president could not control. The Pendleton Act created a new layer of statist imposition that was no longer subject to democratic control. 

 

Why the Arabs Don’t Want Us in Syria by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. FROM Politico

 At left, Joseph P. Kennedy, the author’s uncle, in 1955. Two years later, Amb. Kennedy served on a secret committee that sharply criticized the CIA-backed oversees operations that inflamed anti-American sentiment in the Middle East. That same year, freshman Senator John F. Kennedy, pictured right with brother Robert during a Senate committee hearing, delivered a speech from the Senate floor titled “Imperialism—The Enemy of Freedom,” similarly excoriating the Eisenhower administration for hindering political self-determination in the region. 

 

FDR’s Responsibility for the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor by Jacob G. Hornberger FROM The Future of Freedom Foundation

He [Roosevelt] told American voters, “I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again; your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”

Thomas Jefferson's Blueprint for Dealing With the National Debt

Thomas Jefferson's Blueprint for Dealing With the National Debt

Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence By Bernard London, 1932 FROM wikimedia.org

"I would have the Government assign a lease of life to shoes and homes and machines, to all products of manufacture, mining and agriculture, when they are first created, and they would be sold and used within the term of their existence definitely known by the consumer. After the allotted time had expired, these things would be legally “dead” and would be controlled by the duly appointed governmental agency and destroyed if there is widespread unemployment. New products would constantly be pouring forth from the factories and marketplaces, to take the place of the obsolete, and the wheels of industry would be kept going and employment regularized and assured for the masses."

Walter Q. Gresham, America’s Anti-Imperialist Secretary of State by Hunter DeRensis FROM The Libertarian Institute

American Panic Led to the Creation and Expansion of the Corrupt Federal Reserve System by Jamie Redman FROM Bitcoin.com

Josh Hawley’s New Smoot‐​Hawley By Halie Craig, Clark Packard, Daniel J. Ikenson, Simon Lester, Bryan Riley, & Brandon Arnold FROM The Cato Institute

The FDR Plan to Restore America by Jacob G. Hornberger FROM The Future of Freedom Foundation

How Doctors Broke Health Care by Christy Ford Chapin FROM Reason

Why Did Japan Bomb Pearl Harbor? by Jacob G. Hornberger FROM The Future Freedom Foundation

REVIEW: Conceived in Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard Conceived in Liberty (4 Volume Set) by Murray N. Rothbard

Conceived in Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I confess that even as an American, I basically had no clue about early colonial history and the revolution, or civil war, as Rothbard calls it occasionally. Who knew the NY county I grew up in was a hotbed of Tory reactionaries--darn public education. There is an overwhelming amount of detail in the four volumes which, as he wrote, put the narrative back into history so that readers can judge things for themselves. Readers unfamiliar with Rothbards better known economic works will be rewarded with lots of brief observations and lessons on economics and finance. Rothbard's (aka Mr. Libertarian) anti-authority strain and democratic tendencies is epitomized by his unorthodox explanation of the Salem witch hunts. He argues that many of the accusations emanated from the elite and were actually politically motivated. It was the "revulsion of the people" and "popular petitions" that ended the witch trials.

One broad lesson he teaches is that the liberties were not to be had in America just because there was a lot of land available. It certainly helped, but there were numerous attempts to impose European style feudalism and status/caste social system throughout early American history on settlers who couldn't just pick up and go elsewhere. Another lesson is that the states had very different histories which elsewhere he has written could not really be overlooked until around 1900 when the power of the Federal government overshadowed any differences among states. In fact, he argues that the degree of resistance of oligarchies to reform was roughly proportional to the degree that a state ended up with a liberal constitution. And he makes it clear that force had to be an option, quoting a Dutch revolutionary as saying that following the American example, every man "was to be ready, 'every man with his musket.'" The principle of armed resistance on the part of ordinary colonists as opposed to relying on conventional standing armies is a major theme of the fourth volume. Perhaps he goes into too much military details for some readers, but in doing so he makes it quite clear the a people's war, or guerrilla war, was what worked and not George Washington's insistence on conventional direct confrontation with the British forces. No wonder Washington lost more battles than he won.

He approvingly quotes the historian Shy on Charles Lee, an early proponent of guerrilla warfare, though it wasn't called that at the time:"Intellectual that he was, Lee tried to see the Revolution as a consistent whole, with every aspect in rational harmony with every other. It was a fight by free men for their natural rights. Neither the fighters nor the cause were suited to the military techniques of despotism--the linear tactics, the rigid discipline, the long enlistments, the strict separation of the army from the civic life that marked Frederick's Prussia."

Another big strength of Rothbard's account is that he is not blindly devoted to any of the historical figures he covers. His command of the history and devotion to the truth allows him to chart people's adherence or divergence from the principles of liberty. And there were certainly some surprises there. "The opportunist" Benjamin Franklin was actually on the secret payroll of the Brits at one time. Even more disappointingly, Thomas Paine late in his career sold his pen to the conservative forces. Its hard to do justice to how carefully Rothbard covers all the twists and turns of individuals as they turn left and right in regards to economic and political principles. And yes, that includes George Washington.

I would say that the average reader who may not have time for all of the volumes, would perhaps enjoy volume 4 the most. All the volumes are (legally) available for free at mises.org.

View all my reviews

Review | When presidents lied or misled the nation to go to war — and when they didn’t By Matthew Dallek FROM The Washington Post

James Madison and the First American Immigration Crisis by Mike Maharrey FROM Tenth Amendment Center