Bertram's Blog

People ask me how much truth is in my books, and I have to admit that I base a lot of my story on little known facts (or those that once were little known). Truth is not only stranger than fiction at times, it’s often more compelling. Yesterday I posted a bloggery about the history and myths of the American Civil War that were included in my new novel Light Bringer, and today I’m posting some of the data supporting the claim that the civil war was about preserving the Union at all costs.

In his inaugural address, Lincoln said, “Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accesson of a Republican administration thier property and their peace and personal security are to to be endangered. I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it now exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

in 1861, after the war began, Lincoln said, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the union without freeing any slave, I would do it.”

In a debate with Senator Stephen Douglas, Lincoln said, “I am not nor every have been in favor of bringing about the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or or jurors of Negroes.”

G. Edward Griffin, in The Creature from Jekyll Island, wrote: “When conscription was initiated by Lincoln in 1863, people in the north were outraged. They protested. Federal troops eventually had to be called in to put down anti-draft riots in Ohio and Illinois. In New York City, mobs stormed the draft offices and set fire to the buildings. The riots continued for four days and were suppressed only when the Federal Army of the Potomac was ordered to fire into crowds. Over a thousand civilians were killed or wounded. They also imprisoned protesters without formal charges or trial. Thus, under the banner of opposing slavery, American citizens of the north not only were killed on the streets of their own cities, they were forced into military combat against their will and thrown into prison without due process of law. In other words, free men were enslaved so that slave could be made free. Even if the pretended crusade (against slavery) had been genuine, it was a bad exchange.”

Bruce Catton wrote: “Technically, the Emancipation Proclamation was absurd. It proclaimed freedom for all slaves in precisely those areas where the United States could not make its authority effective, and allowed slavery to continue in slave states under Federal control.” It was strategy, pure and simple, and doomed the South to defeat, because no European government could takes sides against a country that was trying to destroy slavery.

In 1921, Otto Bismark, Chancellor of Germany, admitted: “The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. The bankers were afraid that the United States, if it remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over Europe and the world. Of course, the ‘inner circle’ of finance, the voice of the Rothschilds prevailed. They saw an opportunity for prodigious booty if they could substitute two feeble democracies, burdened with debt to the financiers, inplace of a vigorous republic sufficient unto herself. Therefore, they sent their emissaries into the field to exploit the question of slavery and to drive a wedge between the two parts of the union. The rupture between the North and South became inevitable; the masters of European finance employed all their forces to bring it about and turn it to their advantage.”

The South lost, but so did the North. We no longer own our dollars — world financial institutions own us . . . oops. I mean our money.