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75 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Slaves Freed, Free Men Enslaved to Big Government, April 9, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War (Paperback)
Jeff Hummel, Associate Professor of Economics and History at Golden Gate University, in his new book Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men puts forth the unique new Libertarian hypothesis that, while the slaves were freed as a result of the Civil War, free men were enslaved to bigger government. Evidence which Hummel cites in support of this hypothesis include:(a) the war was fought to preserve the Union, with the fate of slavery being secondary; (b) the Emancipation Proclamation was not issued until two years into the war and even then left the slaves in bondage in the border states (where Lincoln could do something about) while "freeing" them in the Confederacy (where they were beyond Lincoln's reach); and (c) the Civil War accustomed the American people to bigger government, including increased taxation, intervention in the economy, social reform, and suppression of dissent, among other things. Hummel is among the few historians who draw a distinction between the causes of secession and the causes of the Civil War, thus separating the questions "Why did the South want to leave the Union?" and "Why didn't the North let them go?" While Hummel is no Lincoln hagiographer, laying at his doorstep the responsibility for the Civil War (due to his refusal to let the South go), neither is he any fawning apologist for the absolutism of Jefferson Davis. As a Libertarian, Hummel sees no inconsistency in his pro-secession views and his anti-slavery views; indeed, both are part of the revolutionary right of self-determination. Further, he believes that secession would have destabilized slavery by allowing the North to repeal its fugitive slave laws and thus legally making the North a haven for escaped slaves. Hummel is a man who is not afraid to let his opinions be known. His interpretation is fresh, lucid, and insightful. His bibliographies are extremely thorough, showing an excellent command of the literature of the field. Above all, unlike many academics, Hummel actually writes interestingly!
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53 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Presents a lot of overlooked facts, November 4, 2001
This review is from: Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War (Paperback)
Hummel's main focus in this book covers a broad range of topics, but at the same time it's not intended to be a broad, all-inclusive picture of the civil war period. The book tends to concern itself with the motivations and ideologies of the major actors of the war, and Hummel devotes much of his effort to second-guessing those actors. In particular, Hummel heaps criticism on Lincoln for massive conscription (which provoked massive riots, such as the one in New York in July 1863); politically motivated jailings and other repressions; suspending habeus corpus; the debasement of the currency and the resulting great inflation; disregard or contempt for enemy civilians suffering from the war; and huge increases in taxes and national indebtedness. This is not, however, the anti-Lincoln, pro-Confederate screed that some "neo-confederates" are searching for: each of these malfeasances of Lincoln's are also found to take place in the South, and often to a much worse degree. Hummel also does not accept the old canard that the South seceded primarily for reasons other than the preservation of slavery, although he does take the unionists to task for pursuing aims other than emancipation. As a Libertarian, Hummel sees the end of slavery as the only worthy goal to be accomplished by the war - simply "preserving the union" is not an adequate reason for bloodshed and killing. Hummel also appears to be unwilling to accept an "ends-justify-the-means" view of the damage that was done to American liberty in the course of prosecuting the war. One of the recurring things I found in this book was a "what-if" contemplation of ways in which slavery could have been ended without the bloodiest war in American history. Hummel explores the end of slavery elsewhere in the world during the 1800s. Outside of Haiti, no other country had to undergo any bloodshed in order to end black slavery. Hummel seems to be advocating that the North could have caused slavery to evaporate by withdrawing its support for it, mainly by ceasing to cooperate with the South in apprehending runaway slaves. In my view it's likely that slavery was just too deeply entrenched in the South to have eroded in the same way it did in some other countries, but Hummel still makes some interesting arguments. This book is not a massive effort to provide an all-encompassing understanding of the Civil War, and of the topics it does cover, none of them are covered masterfully. The book is a standout mostly because it evaluates the period from a unique point of view, i.e., the Libertarian view. As such this book has, for its size and scope, much more information on the attitudes of American anarchists towards slavery and the war, compared to what you would find in any other comparably sized work. Hummel also thinks that the South should have relied more on guerilla style warfare for its defense, letting Northern troops advance unopposed, but hampering them from actually occupying territory, and cutting their supply lines. It needs to be pointed out that this type of warfare is much more agreeable to the Libertarian because it doesn't rely on central government control of operations and it doesn't involve offensive operations which might harm civilians. Hummel is probably right to criticize Southern commanders for throwing their troops into some very uneven, disadvantageous situations, but the reader should know that his view of how the South should have fought is not exactly the conventional wisdom among historians. The idea that the South could have won at all, under any circumstances, is itself controversial. If you are a Libertarian, or are otherwise interested in learning about the misdeeds of government during the Civil War, this is a must-read. Also, the annotated bibliographies are excellent, and interesting reading by themselves.
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70 of 77 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A challenging and groundbreaking history, December 1, 1999
Given the extensive (and very helpful) bibliographic notes, Hummel's text is all too thin. In that space, though, he makes some well-supported arguments about the negative impact of the War Between the States on American liberty, even as slavery was abolished. Unlike some other revisionist works on the period, he makes no attempt to sugarcoat the Confederacy, but delves into civil liberties violations and the growth of the centralized state in that country, too. Hummel's criticism of Lincoln for overstepping legitimate presidential powers, and his support of secession as a principle separate from the context of slavery seems to draw violently emotional reactions from people who want to view the war as a black-and-white war of good against evil. I take that as evidence of the high quality of Hummel's research and writing. Overall, this is an excellent work, and I'd very much like to see more from Hummel along these lines.
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