HOW AN ARMY OFFICER SAVED LINCOLN FROM A FATAL CHARGE

There are many unsung heroes in America’s past. With present educational trends projected into the distant American future, the deeds and insights of these heroes will be less and less likely to see the light of day. Why? The ruling circles, as the theoreticians of the old U.S.S.R. might term them, have an iron-clad rule:  All the information that is fit for the general citizenry to know, let them know. This rule means that material omissions are the primary characteristic of America’s media, as by now this media reflects the policy decisions of the “power elite.”

Some will disagree with this assessment. Be that as it may, I intend to share an interesting story which the younger crowd, particularly, may not have encountered. I assume the story is accurate, although some of the character of historical fiction may have entered the tale. But the underlying issues are, in fact, of great importance, and these issues lurk amid and below the words of the tale, somewhat like the moral to an Aesopian tale. 

Let me commence, then, with this story from my source:

“ABRAHAM LINCOLN had been elected President, and in spite of his assurance of a sincere desire to serve all the country alike, the Southern States had ’seceded’ from the Union and established a government of their own, called the Southern Confederate States of America, seizing Fort Sumpter and other Government ’stores’ and arsenals, and so the war was on.

“Lincoln called for volunteer soldiers for three months, thinking the emergency would soon be over. Such, however, was not to be the case, and when the three months enlistments were up, it was very plain then that it was a real war, and also that the government had no ready money with which to equip an army and proceed with the war.

“It is said that Lincoln and his Secretary of the Treasury went to the ‘bankers’ or money lenders of New York and applied for loans to the Government to carry on the war; the bankers replying, ‘Well, war is a hazardous business, but we can let you have it at from 24% to 36%.’

“Appleton Cyclopedia, 1861, page 296, says:  ‘The money kings wanted 24% to 36% interest for loans to our government to conduct the Civil War.’

“The President and his Secretary are said to have heatedly refused, and stated the terms were outrageous, scandalous, unpatriotic, etc., and the money lenders are said to have replied that, ‘If the government didn’t want the money at that figure, why, they could loan it to the Southern Confederacy,’ and that is probably what they did. President Lincoln and his Secretary were, of course, greatly disturbed and in a quandary as to what to do and how to get money to prosecute the war and pay their soldiers. During Lincoln’s worrying over this matter, he recalled that he had a friend by the name of Col. Dick Taylor in Chicago, in whom he had great confidence; so he sent for him and put the problem of finance up to him to solve.

” ‘Why, Lincoln,’ Taylor is said to have replied, ‘that is easy; just get Congress to pass a bill authorizing the printing of full legal tender treasury notes or greenbacks, and pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war with them also.’

” ‘Do you suppose the people will take them?’ Lincoln is said to have asked.

“And to this Taylor replied:

” ‘ The people or anyone else will not have any choice in the matter, if you make them full legal tender. They will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money; as Congress is given that express right by the Constitution, and the stamp of full legal tender by the Government is the thing that makes money good anytime, and this will always be as good as any other money inside the borders of our country.’

“And so it is written that very thing was done, the soldiers were paid and some sixty million dollars of the full legal tender greenbacks were issued. All were taken at par and never appreciably fell below par at any time, as they were full legal tender for all debts both public and private, and the integrity and resources of the whole Nation guaranteed their value.

“President Lincoln was greatly appreciative of this help of Col. Taylor and just in order that the reader may have no doubt of the matter, Mr. Lincoln’s letter to Col. Taylor in regard to this matter is herewith reproduced:

” ‘Abraham Lincoln’s Letter to Col. Taylor,’ from the New York Tribune, Dec. 6th, 1891.

” ‘My dear Colonel Dick:  I have long determined to make public the origin of the greenback and tell the world that it is Dick Taylor’s creation. You had always been friendly to me, and when troublous times fell on us, and my shoulders, though broad and willing, were weak, and myself surrounded by such circumstances and such people that I knew not whom to trust, then I said in my extremity: ‘I will send for Colonel Taylor; he will know what to do.’ I think it was January, 1862, on or about the 16th, that I did so; you came, and I said to you: ‘What can we do?’ Said you, ‘Why, issue Treasury notes bearing no interest, print on the best banking paper. Issue enough to pay off the Army expenses and declare it legal tender.’

” ‘Chase thought it a hazardous thing, but we finally accomplished it and gave the people of this Republic THE GREATEST BLESSING THEY EVER HAD–their own money to pay their own debts.

” ‘It is due you, the father of the present greenback that the people should know it, and I take great pleasure in making it known. How many times I have laughed at you telling me plainly, that I was too lazy to be anything but a lawyer.

” ‘Yours truly,

” ‘A. Lincoln.’

“But the wonderful condition spoken of by Mr. Lincoln was not to continue. Our glorious country was not to have the continuous blessing of a paper money to pay its debts with.

“As soon as Lincoln began to issue perfectly good full legal tender greenbacks, good as gold anywhere in the country, the bankers and money changers saw that unless they could stop that sort of thing they were ’sunk’ so far as ever being able to issue money again themselves.”

> LINCOLN_MONEY MARTYRED (1935), “Dr. R.E. Search”, pp.44-46

This is certainly food for thought. There are probably a few military men still about who possess Col. Dick Taylor’s clarity of thought and patriotism, but they will never see another Lincoln to serve as well as Col. Taylor served the original. Any Lincoln in our times would certainly be in danger. The struggle with bankers and their borderless capital by the dwindling number of strong American Statesmen seems to be lost. The Federal Reserve Act is the symbol and substance of the enslavement of the American citizens by means of ever-thickening chains of debt, while funding the deconstruction of the nation and the construction of a “New World Order.” Before there can be order, there must be destruction. America has participated in one war after another, and in this process, defeated itself, apparently, forever. The people don’t know peace. There are no answers in peace. The American people know only war as a “solution.” Vainly, they declare themselves innocent, only responding to the provocations of wicked men. Parenthetically, there is a truism: Choose your enemy well, for you will become your enemy. The people, betrayed by educators, priests and preachers, never found the leadership and strength to throw off the peril descendant upon them. Our American military leaders, awaiting the righteous order, remain thus, waiting along with Godot.

Downnlaced, 2008.

NOTES ON MAJOR AMERICAN OBSERVERS: MARK TWAIN

America has produced some notable observers of their contemporary scenes, but these men and women have not always had their observations available very long. When the focus has been on people or groups who have the power to “stifle” it, the offending observations tend to “vanish” from the face of the Earth.

 Among some sages, who are well-versed in the “ways of the world” and who apply such principles upon every subject, there is the dictum: “the old die; the young forget.” With this in mind I have decided to resurrect some forgotten insights, so that, even though the old die, the young need not be consigned to darkness. Consider:

Samuel L. Clemens was a 19th century American writer who is better known as MARK TWAIN. “In the U.S. Cotton states, after the war…the Jew came down in force, set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negroes’ wants on credit, and at the end of the season was the proprietor of the negro’s share of the present crop and part of the next one. Before long, the whites detested the Jew.

“The Jew is being legislated out of Russia. The reason is not concealed. The movement was instituted because the Christian peasant stood no chance against his commercial abilities. The Jew was always ready to lend on a crop. When settlement day came, he owned the crop; the next year he owned the farm.

“In the England of John’s time everybody got into debt to the Jew. He gathered all lucrative enterprises into his hands. He was the King of Commerce. He had to be banished from the realm. For like reasons, Spain had to banish him 400 years ago, and Austria a couple of centuries later.

“In all ages Christian Europe has been obliged to curtail his activities. If he entered upon a trade, the Christian had to retire from it. If he set up as a doctor, he took the business. If he exploited agriculture, the other farmers had to get at something else. The law had to step in to save the Christian from the poor-house. Still, almost bereft of employments, he found ways to make money. Even to get rich. This history has a most sordid and practical commercial look. Religious prejudices may account for one part of it, but not for the other nine.

“Protestants have persecuted Catholics–but they did not take their livelihoods away from them. Catholics have persecuted Protestants–but they never closed agriculture and the handicrafts against them. I feel convinced that the Crucifixion has not much to do with the world’s attitude toward the Jews; that the reasons for it are much older than that event…I am convinced that the persecution of the Jew is not in any large degree due to religious prejudice. No, the Jew is a money-getter. He made it the end and aim of his life. He was at it in Rome. He has been at it ever since. His success has made the whole human race his enemy. You will say that the Jew is everywhere numerically feeble. When I read in the Cyclopedia Britannica that the Jewish population in the United States was 250,000 I wrote the editor and explained to him that I was personally acquainted with more Jews than that, and that his figures were without doubt a misprint for 25,000,000. People told me that they had reasons to suspect that for business reasons, many Jews did not report themselves as Jews. It looks plausible. I am strongly of the opinion that we have an immense Jewish population in America. I am assured by men competent to speak that the Jews are exceedingly active in politics….”

> AMERICA’S PROMISE NEWSLETTER, www.amprom.org, June, 2007, citing Harper’s Monthly Magazine (1899), article “Concerning the Jews.”

Note: “Twain’s opinion on the Jews is probably the best-kept secret in American literary history. Immediately after his death, his eccentric daughter Clara married-or was married by-the Jewish piano player, Ossip Gabrilowitsch. Twain’s publishers were given speedy instructions to delete “Concerning the Jews” from the collected works, where it had appeared in the book The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg & Other Stories.” [Emphasis added.]

I believe that I should add a bit more information, as the typical contemporary nonJew is “primed” to suppose that anti-Semitism is being exhibited even when the most banal, factual data is stated. This citation supposes that Mark Twain has not been “tainted” for exhibiting anti-Semitic commentary, but in fact he has been alluded to in this connection. However, whoever is behind the “correction” in regard to Mark Twain’s reputation has apparently decided to use “racism” as the displacement mechanism by which to punish his rather pedestrian observations. If so, then it is not the first time that Black people have been manipulated to do the will of, say, Jews. For his “racism” Mark Twain has been largely banished from the public educational scene.

Nevertheless, I will offer some available data which indicates the reason why Jews have placed such importance on being “money-getters.” Consider”

“Most nonobservant Jews perceive Judaism to be a set of laws relating to blessings, holidays, ansd rituals between man and God. But Judaism is much more than a religion–it is a way of life….A man or woman is not asked first about Sabbath observance, kashrut observance, or even how much charity he or she gave. Rather, it is business ethics that first concerns God. Another talmudic passage indicates that the path to Jewish wisdom can be through the business world. It says that to acquire Jewish wisdom, a person should either study Torah or be involved slightly with business and to become wealthy, he should be totally involved with business and remain honest! The Midrash says that if a person is honest in business, it is considered as if he fulfilled the entire Torah. Another talmudic passage states that if a person desires to be a Torah scholar, he should study Jewish business laws….” [Emphasis added.]

> THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MORAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES, Nachum Amsel, p.29

I believe that this citation offers a fractional explanation for the observed “way of life” which Mark Twain indicated in his own humorous fashion, cited above. There are clear admonishment by learned scholars of the Torah to be ethical, honest businessmen. However, since this seems also at odds both with known Jewish practices and with the “fallen” nature of mankind, it seems to be an exalted level to which to aspire. Also, frankly, there do seem to be schools of thought within Jewry that state a duality which manifests itself by placing Jews on the right side of the Tree of Life [good side] and nonJews on the left side [bad side]. This is an expression indicating Cabala’s influence. To praise The Most High a Jew may be honest and ethical with a nonJew. Then again, he may perceive the nonJew as a glorified beast which has no inherent right to property. Such a perception may lead to “crafty” doings which may result in the ruin of the nonJew.

There are many things which might be offered to round out the picture, but rarely do bad relationships developed between two groups of people intent upon doing that which is good, moral , and ethical.

Downnlaced, 2008.