U.S. History

Recorded at the Mises Institute, May 1994.

Recorded at the Reassessing the Presidency seminar; March 2004. (47:26)

Several court cases must be mentioned. Each makes a point. Plessey v. Ferguson: Segregation Separate but equal is ok.  Brown v. Board of Education: Separate schools are inherently unequal. Green v. County School Board of New Kent County: Freedom of choice desegregation plan unconstitutional.

Recorded at the Mises Institute, May 1994.

You can’t take Southern secession seriously because of slavery. Illinois is worth pondering because Lincoln supported the laws against blacks because he did not think that free blacks could ever mix with whites. A superior position was assigned to the white race. Lincoln meant every word. He voted against every suggested improvement for blacks. He saw universal emancipation as impossible.

The transforming ideology of the American Revolution consists of four elements: liberalism, republicanism, English law, and Protestantism. Liberalism was developed by the Levellers, saying that natural rights could be evolved from natural law.

Recorded at the Mises Institute, May 1994.

Before there was the Federal Reserve there was the second Bank of the United States (1817–1836). Since the late nineteenth century, historians and economists have lauded this institution for its salutary control over the currency, its regulation of the state banks, its prudent stewardship of the government’s funds, and its example of a fruitful private/public partnership in the field of central banking.

Ryan McMaken provides a sweeping roundup of false perceptions of the American West. The story is not one of unrelenting violence but of hard work, trade, peace, and the tedium of daily life. The development of the West was not dependent on the soldier with the rifle, but on the blacksmith, the school teacher, and the saloon owner.

The Republicans have done it again. With their new Medicare bill, they’ve made government even bigger.