Customer Reviews

Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War

5 star:		(12)
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3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

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!

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.

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.

Hummel does a fantastic job of describing the important aspects of the Civil War. He covers topics relating to military, social, and economic issues, which allows the reader to develop a full understanding of the various aspects of the war without having to read a book that is several thousand pages long. I found chapter 9 to be extremely helpful because it talks about the economic aspects of both the Southern and Northern economies. What really sets this book apart from the countless Civil War books that come out every month are the bibliographical essays at the end of each chapter. They help the reader gain a better understanding by examining different topics that go along with each chapter, and by suggesting and discussing different books the reader may want to examine. This is truly an impressive work on Civil War history and any history buff will enjoy it.

These days many of us wonder how it happened that the great ideals of the American Revolution, liberty and self-reliance, were overthrown and replaced by today's gigantic and ravenous welfare-warfare state. It is easy to blame Roosevelt and the New Deal, but many of his monstrous impositions only continued and expanded institutions that arose in the Progressive era earlier in the century. Hummel argues that we must look back farther, to the Civil War, as the beginning of the end of our Revolutionary experiment.

"The Civil War represents the simultaneous culmination and repudiation of the American Revolution," says Hummel. By ending slavery, it settled once and for all the great contradiction that had bedeviled the Republic from its beginning and whose resolution had been forestalled by several shaky Compromises prior to 1860. But while freeing the slaves, the War set the stage for the gradual enslavement of us all. The War legitimized the intrusion of the central government into virtually every aspect of our lives which is so evident today.

Slavery would have ended almost as quickly and at much lower costs in lives, treasure, and liberties, had the South been allowed to go peacefully, says Hummel. This is not because slavery was uneconomical -- it wasn't -- but because enforcement costs would have overwhelmed what Hummel calls the "peculiar institution." With secession, runaways would no longer have been captured and returned to the South. It would have been impossible for the Confederacy to effectively guard its long border. This would have virtually ended slavery in the border states of the South and eventually in the entire Confederacy.

Though Hummel's radical libertarian views will put off many
historians, they cannot ignore his careful scholarship and especially his extensive bibliographic essays. This is a seminal book that deserves careful study and follow-up.

The main thing I got out of this book was just how damaging Lincoln was to the cause of freedom in America. Lincoln trampled individual rights, jailing people indefinitely on his whim, instating the draft, even assaulting freedom of speech (which I think is one of the few freedoms left). From Hummel's Libertarian perspective, Lincoln was probably the worst president in history. The one thing that should be pointed out in Lincoln's defense is that war always involves curtailments of liberty and requires an essentially fascistic operation of the government. The problem is that the increased governmental power doesn't go away after the war ends. I think this book is very timely at this moment in history, as our current president is about to lead us into yet another war. The Constitution says that only Congress can declare war. That means that the United States cannot engage in any military action with another country unless two-thirds of Congress approves it. Yet, look at all the presidents who have committed U.S. troops to war without a Congressional declaration. Why isn't this seen as unConstitutional? Why aren't they talking about it on Face the Nation? What gave Truman the right to commit U.S. forces to fight in Korea? Why does everyone in the media assume that George Bush has the right to start a war with Iraq when he has no such constitutional authority? What gave Clinton the power to bomb an aspirin factory in the Sudan to divert attention from his sex scandals? I'll tell you who: it was Lincoln. He started the whole trend.

Within the framework of history, Jeff Hummel provides the mostinnovative analysis of the ACW I have yet to encounter. This work isthe American equivalent of Quo Vadis, an in depth understanding of the growth of the American federal government, exploding from the onset of the Civil War. The detailed bibliography concluding each chapter is an encyclopedia of its own.

A must read for ACW buffs and historians.

Jeffrey L. Wissot, DDS

Jeffrey Hummel has given us a concise and well written Libertarian's eye view of the Civil War.Professor Hummel's central thesis is that the civil war was the fruition of one of the principles of the American Revolution Human Freedom, but that it was a repudiation of the Revolution's other principles; self-determination federalism , limited government. The first part of the book gives an excellent survey of the causes of the war. Hummel is not a neo-Confederate.He makes it clear that slavery was an abomination and one of the war's central causes along with states rights vs. federal encroachment and the pursuit by both sections of economic self interest. Hummel believes that the war was not inevitable had both sides been willing to live and let live.The book is well written and well researched with massive notes at the end of each chapter.But on a number of points the author is simply not persuasive. He contends that without the war slavery would have died out by the end of the nineteenth century. I would like to believe this but something tells me it would not have happened. Also His assertion that the U.S. would be just as important a nation today minus the Confederacy does not ring true and ditto His Constitutional defense of the right of secession.But having said that there is more positive than negative to be said about this book.His documentation of Lincoln's massive assault upon civil liberties in the name of preserving the union is enough to cause one to rethink the Great emancipator.Hummel is certainly correct that the war brought on a massive exspansion of federal power which continues to this day and the jury is still out as to wheather that is good or bad.In the final analysis this is a thought provoking book. Wheather you agree with Hummel's arguments or not you cannot ignore. I would reccomend this book only to those who want to be challenged to think about the seminal event in our history and all that has flowed from it.

Hummel is careful, fair, and concise as he lays out the factual threads that comprise the American Civil War. It isn't until the epilogue, however, that we see what he's been making with these threads--a noose capable of hanging the myths that we all learned in school. Myth 1: Secession would have been bad for Northern whites and Southern blacks. Myth 2: Secession would have been good for slaveholders. Myth 3: The Civil War was a necessary war. Myth 4: The war was the only way, or at least the best way, to free the slaves. Myth 5: The objective of the war was to free the Southern slaves. Myth 6: Lincoln was an American hero who advanced the cause of freedom and democracy.

In truth, the Civil War was an unnecessary monstrosity whose blame rests with political leaders on both sides of the fight, but primarily with the idolized Lincoln.

Charles L. Hooper, coauthor of Making Great Decisions in Business and Life

It seems that "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men" has been gaining a small amount of popularity from neo-confederate authors who praise the book on it's many refreshing and truthful conclusions despite the fact that Hummel's book generally follows tired and true doctrine proclaiming the war to be Southern cause to protect slavery.

Unlike most Civil War books that praise Lincoln and chastise the South, Hummel forgoes the Lincoln idolatry while retaining his Southern criticism. He therefor concludes that even though the Southern intent was wholly immoral, Lincoln's crusade to save the Union was just as unscrupulous as Lincoln came to a presumptions and unrealistic conclusion that world-wide democracy was endangered by an independent southern nation. Hummel argues quite convincingly that rather then save democracy and liberty, he actually destroyed it by his reckless and tyrannical actions.

In all of this, the only real concession he gives to the South is that slavery was basically doomed before the secession movement even began and the forming of the Confederacy made it even weaker, pointing out that even Alexander Stephens recognized that slavery was more secure in the American Union rather than out of it.

Other than that, Hummel actually touches on a lot of other subjects that readers may find interesting including Confederate finances, Union medical services, and the impact of new weaponry to help round out his study. He also provides excellent bibliographical essays for readers who want to read about certain topics in far greater detail than what he provides.

So why the four stars? I found the book to be a tad short, I would have enjoyed a deeper analysis on certain subjects in Hummel's own words, but I suppose I will have to rely on his recommendations.