U.S. History

The Southern Reconstruction, while portrayed by progressives as virtuous northerners trying to rebuild the South, was actually an attempt to use state power to direct social and economic life there. 

While historian Walter A. McDougall was not a libertarian, nonetheless he had some Rothbardian insights on Woodrow Wilson and his reckless intervention into World War I. David Gordon notes that while McDougall‘s views on intervention were inconsistent, they still are useful.

In a recent New York Times column, Dartmouth professor Brooke Harrington claimed that Trump is undoing trust in our institutions while Franklin Roosevelt restored it. Clearly, Harrington doesn‘t know much about FDR—or Trump.

The US government has long pushed to establish government-sponsored cartels and monopolies that weakened free-market competition and enriched incumbent businesses, unions, and other interest groups.

The American Revolution struck a heavy blow to mercantilism. Unfortunately, many mercantilist policies persisted under new labels: cartelization, monopoly, regulation, and taxation to support corporate friends. Today we call these neomercantilist practices cronyism and corporatism. 

Before leaving office, President Joe Biden posthumously pardoned black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who was convicted of mail fraud in 1923. Like other dissenters that came afterward, Garvey was hounded by the FBI. He remains a complex character even in death.

The Southern secession from 1861-65 is portrayed as a “lost cause” by supporters and an act of evil by its detractors. Murray Rothbard argued that the Confederates were seeking freedom from political oppressors, just as their ancestors had done in the American Revolution.

There is truth, and then there is government truth. Unfortunately, today‘s ruling class wants us to believe that government (or at least government run by elites) is the source of truth, and not to believe our lying eyes.

The 1929 Stock Market Crash led to the largest economic recession in modern world history.

Modern progressives believe that one can only be loyal to one‘s nation by being loyal to the central government. Yet, American history shows that the “nation” is not the state but rather the community to which one belongs.