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[[File:Abraham Lincoln O-77 matte collodion print.jpg|thumb | [[File:Abraham Lincoln O-77 matte collodion print.jpg|thumb|Photograph of Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner, taken on November 8, 1863, eleven days before his famed Gettysburg Address]] | ||
The archetype of America’s emergent Christhood through a path of individualism, '''Abraham Lincoln''', was born in humble surroundings in a log cabin in the backwoods of Kentucky. As president he fought to preserve the Union. His secondary goal was to free the Negro slaves, although he said he would not free them at the expense of the Union. He was opposed by business and financial interests in both the North and South. | The archetype of America’s emergent Christhood through a path of individualism, '''Abraham Lincoln''', was born in humble surroundings in a log cabin in the backwoods of Kentucky. As president he fought to preserve the Union. His secondary goal was to free the Negro slaves, although he said he would not free them at the expense of the Union. He was opposed by business and financial interests in both the North and South. | ||
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Lincoln opposed the financial powers in other ways as well. At the beginning of the war, Lincoln tried to borrow money from national and international bankers to finance the Union Army. According to one source, they wanted to charge him 24 to 36 percent interest.<ref>''Appleton Cyclopedia'', 1861, p. 296.</ref> Rather than accept the bankers’ terms, he decided to print paper money—greenbacks—which became legal tender. Had Lincoln borrowed money at those usurious rates, the bankers would have essentially owned the United States government at the close of the war. | Lincoln opposed the financial powers in other ways as well. At the beginning of the war, Lincoln tried to borrow money from national and international bankers to finance the Union Army. According to one source, they wanted to charge him 24 to 36 percent interest.<ref>''Appleton Cyclopedia'', 1861, p. 296.</ref> Rather than accept the bankers’ terms, he decided to print paper money—greenbacks—which became legal tender. Had Lincoln borrowed money at those usurious rates, the bankers would have essentially owned the United States government at the close of the war. | ||
Next, the bankers proposed a national banking system which would allow them to issue bank notes backed by U.S. government bonds. These notes would be just short of legal tender since the law said that they could be used in payment for all debts except duties on imports. The National Bank Act which incorporated their plan would allow expansion of the money supply through a fractional reserve system: banks could lend out more money than they had on deposit.<ref> | Next, the bankers proposed a national banking system which would allow them to issue bank notes backed by U.S. government bonds. These notes would be just short of legal tender since the law said that they could be used in payment for all debts except duties on imports. The National Bank Act which incorporated their plan would allow expansion of the money supply through a fractional reserve system: banks could lend out more money than they had on deposit.<ref>Herman E. Krooss, ed., ''Documentary History of Banking and Currency in the United States'' (Edgemont, Pa.: Chelsea House Publishers, 1969), 2:1392–93.</ref> | ||
After heavy lobbying by bankers led by Jay and Henry Cooke, the act was passed in 1863 and it resulted in a surge of inflation. Furthermore, as economist Murray Rothbard writes, it also “paved the way for the Federal Reserve System by instituting a quasi-central banking type of monetary system.”<ref>Murray N. Rothbard, ''The Mystery of Banking'' (n.p.: Richardson & Snyder, 1983), p. 224.</ref> | After heavy lobbying by bankers led by Jay and Henry Cooke, the act was passed in 1863 and it resulted in a surge of [[inflation]]. Furthermore, as economist Murray Rothbard writes, it also “paved the way for the Federal Reserve System by instituting a quasi-central banking type of monetary system.”<ref>Murray N. Rothbard, ''The Mystery of Banking'' (n.p.: Richardson & Snyder, 1983), p. 224.</ref> | ||
An undocumented source says that during his second term in office Lincoln planned to repeal the National Bank Act or restrict the powers it had granted bankers. Had Lincoln repealed this privilege, banks would have lost a huge money-making opportunity. | An undocumented source says that during his second term in office Lincoln planned to repeal the National Bank Act or restrict the powers it had granted bankers. Had Lincoln repealed this privilege, banks would have lost a huge money-making opportunity. | ||
[[File:Edwin McMasters Stanton Secretary of War.jpg|thumb|Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s Secretary of War, one of the conspirators in the assassination plot]] | [[File:Edwin McMasters Stanton Secretary of War.jpg|thumb|upright|Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s Secretary of War, one of the conspirators in the assassination plot]] | ||
== The assassination plot == | == The assassination plot == | ||
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The country has never been the same. | The country has never been the same. | ||
== Aftermath == | |||
The Civil War had destroyed the power of the Southern landholding aristocracy and established the Northern industrial powers. “A new plutocracy emerged from the War and Reconstruction, masters of money who were no less self-conscious and no less powerful than the planter aristocracy of the Old South,” wrote historians Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager. “The war, which had gone far to flatten out class distinctions in the South, tended to accentuate class differences in the North.”<ref>Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager, ''The Growth of the American Republic'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), 2:17.</ref> This set the stage for the emergence of the Northern banking establishment as a national ruling class. | |||
The era of political chaos which followed Lincoln’s assassination was to be instrumental in the rise of this power elite. Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, fought to carry out his lenient reconstruction plan. Echoing Lincoln’s sentiments he said, “If a State is to be nursed until it again gets strength, it must be nursed by its friends, not smothered by its enemies.”<ref>Kenneth W. Leish, ed., ''The American Heritage Pictorial History of the Presidents of the United States'' (New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., 1968), 1:432–33, 429.</ref> | |||
Lincoln had promised to recognize governments of Southern states that would emancipate their slaves and pledge loyalty to the Constitution and the Union if they were backed by at least 10 percent of the number of voters in the 1860 presidential election. Johnson’s plan followed the same basic lines. | |||
The Radical Republicans virulently opposed both plans. Over Johnson’s repeated vetoes, they passed their own more extreme reconstruction legislation. With fiery rhetoric they called for the punishment of the South in the name of morality and justice. But their real aim was to see that their own power remained unchallenged. | |||
Johnson turned out to be as much of an obstacle to the Radicals as Lincoln had been. He declared himself the enemy of their goals of monopoly, centralization of power in a national government, and the unlimited exploitation by corporations of the country’s natural resources. “Wherever monopoly attains a foothold,” he said, “it is sure to be a source of anger, discord, and trouble.”<ref>Howard K. Beale, ''The Critical Year: A Study of Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction'' (1930; reprint, New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1958), p. 264.</ref> As Professor Howard K. Beale writes, “For the future of industrial America, Johnson’s championship of public interest and the common man was far more dangerous than any Southern policy he might conceive.”<ref>Ibid., p. 218.</ref> | |||
During his term Johnson took a firm stand against the attempts of big business to use the federal government to exploit unsettled Western lands. He opposed grants of public lands to railroads and favored reserving them for pioneer farmers. Of interest is his veto of two bills which would have permitted corporations to purchase public lands in Montana and thus monopolize the mineral and coal resources of the state for their own private gain.<ref>Ibid., pp. 265, 269–71.</ref> | |||
The Radical Republicans counterattacked. They set out to strip the presidency of its power and render Congress omnipotent, even if it meant bypassing the Constitution and its system of checks and balances. In March of 1867, Congress passed three bills that were unconstitutional, one of them taking from the president his role as commander in chief. | |||
When Johnson openly defied another of these laws by removing from office his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, who had been plotting with the Radicals against him, they voted articles of impeachment against him and he missed being convicted by only one vote. After Johnson’s term was finished, a more compliant president was elected—Gen. Ulysses S. Grant—who allowed the Radicals to control the executive branch. | |||
While Johnson was able to slow down the industrialists and protect the powers of the presidency, he could not stop them and the lawmakers they controlled from ushering in a new economic order and an age of big business. Following the Civil War, the robber barons—men such as Jay Gould, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt and John Jacob Astor—and other financiers and industrialists seized control of the institutions of the country through their unscrupulously gained wealth. | |||
== The example of Lincoln == | |||
The [[Goddess of Freedom]] has called us to follow in the footsteps of Lincoln: | |||
<blockquote> | |||
Contemplate with me now yourself as an individualization of the flame of freedom. Think of yourself multiplied by the action of this body of the Lord. Then think of Abraham Lincoln as he stood alone in the White House, as he stood alone and withstood all of the rebellion of the fallen ones who sought to separate out of the Union and to defy all the fiery core of the Father-Mother God in the original thirteen—the mandala of initiation of Christ and his apostles. | |||
Think how he had encountered already the international bankers, the Illuminati and those who sought to use the Civil War to take over America for their schemes of power and control. Think how he defied all of those who had their selfish interests. Think of how he stood for the flame of Mother. Think of how that president was willing to lay down his life for the love of the Mother and her children, and then ask yourself: “Can I not do the same? Can I do less? And if I will do the same, will not the same hosts of the L<small>ORD</small> buoy up my soul in the light of victory?”<ref>The Goddess of Freedom, “Releasing the Flame of Freedom Enshrined in the Capitals of the Nations,” Part 2, {{POWref|44|21|, May 27, 2001}}</ref> | |||
</blockquote> | |||
== See also == | == See also == | ||