JANUARY 17, 1998

Applying the Lessons of the
Lincoln Administration To Win
the War Against Oligarchy Today

by Lyndon LaRouche

[Print version of this article]

Mr. LaRouche’s answer to the following question at a Schiller Institute conference has never before been published. The questioner said: “I know how the organization likes to look back, reflect on history, and pick out the good things that have been done in the past, and recreate those. My question deals with this. Earlier today, you mentioned that in the 1800s, during the Lincoln administration, that that was our best opportunity for economic development and growth. Also, this could also apply to maybe the Roosevelt and Kennedy administrations and whatever, but I like to stick to the Lincoln example.

“But, what was it? Was there something that caused the paradigm shift in the way the public in general thought, that made them discover, ‘hey, we’ve been electing the wrong type of people. Now, let’s make a change, and elect the right type of person.’ Because, for example, today, if you put a good candidate in front of people, since they’ve been educated by the boob tube and whatever, they still wouldn’t vote for the good candidate. You’ve proved that many times yourself. What dynamic was in the workings, to cause people to wake up and say ‘hey, we need to do this.’”

First of all is: what was the nature of the Lincoln-Carey program, in its 1861-1876 phase? The significance of 1876 is, that this was the great Centennial celebration of the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, which was an international festival, in which the accomplishments of the United States in economy and technology were featured at the Philadelphia fair. This coincided with the first efforts by the enemies of the United States from within, to destroy the United States system, beginning 1873, with the bankrupting of Jay Cooke, in order to bring the United States back under the control of the London bankers, and their New York City and New England stooges.

After 1876

So therefore, 1876 is a turning point, which represents the cumulative high point of a period of development of about 15 years of economy, despite efforts already in place to disrupt it. Sometimes the product is finished after the plant is about to be shut down, you know, this sort of thing.

So, this model of the American System, the 1876 model, was adopted by Germany, that is, by the national economy faction in Germany. It was adopted by [Chancellor Otto von] Bismarck shortly after that, who changed his policy, who introduced a social welfare policy into Germany as part of this and broke with the British. It was introduced into Russia through the scientist Dmitri Mendeleyev, who was the great railroad builder, and the great developer of many industries in Russia, together with his friends, including his friend, a younger man, Graf Sergei Witte, Finance Minister and, for a time, the Prime Minister of Russia, who was eliminated by the British with the 1905 Revolution and things like that. And Russia was rearmed afterward, but was only rearmed with British and French support, especially French support, after 1907, 1908, in order to build up Russia for war against Germany, because Russia had become, after the 1905 Revolution, a complete tool of the Anglo-French forces, in a conspiracy to destroy Germany.

And, up to that time, up until 1898, approximately, and in that period; 1894, Japan broke with the United States, with the Sino-Japanese war, and went over to the British side totally. And Japan was enemy of the United States, from 1894, until the end of World War II. As a matter of fact, the attack on Pearl Harbor was originally planned by the British and Japanese together, in the early 1920s, when the British and the Japanese were planning to conduct a war against the United States, in the context of the Naval Power Treaty agreements, the so-called Locarno, etc., business.

But, in that period, from the Lincoln period, from the victory in the Civil War, until approximately the end of the Nineteenth Century, the allies of the United States were, or became, Russia. We had no allies before then; none. We had only one thing, we had Morocco. And the United States had an alliance with the Moroccans against the Barbary pirates, early in the Nineteenth Century. That was our only ally, from about 1793, 1789, our only ally, until the 1850s. And our first important ally came in the 1850s, in terms of Russia, Alexander II of Russia. We were isolated.

The victory in the Civil War established the United States, particularly this development, leading into 1876, as the leading economic power in the world. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, the United States was the leading military power in the world. The United States was, technologically, the most advanced nation in the world, all of these good things. And a lot of people said, “Hey, this is a great model, let’s work with this.” Among the first to join the United States was Japan. The Meiji Restoration was the result of the United States’ success in influencing the Japanese to imitate the United States. And Henry Carey sent E. Peshine Smith, one of his students, to Japan, as consultant to the Meiji Restoration, in order to design the industrial economy of Japan.

Friends and Allies

Then you had Russia, of course, which was an ally of the United States. Germany was an ally of the United States, especially after 1876. France became an ally of the United States. It had been the enemy of the United States, a British ally, the enemy of the United States, until Napoleon III was sent into the ashcan, or back to Britain, which was pretty much the same thing. And it remained an ally of the United States until 1898, when it went over, back to the other side, back to the British side. So, this is this period.

Now, what happened in this period? The problem was, is that because of the isolation of the United States, every power in Europe, every power of the Holy Alliance, every nation in South and Central America, which was allied with the Holy Alliance, plus Britain, plus Russia, which was a part of the Holy Alliance, were enemies of the United States. We had, except for Morocco, we had no allies outside the United States; none.

Though we had friends in Mexico, like the movement in Mexico, which were called the Protectionists, which were tied to John Quincy Adams. You had movements in Colombia, connected through the American System, through Germany, and things like that. We had many movements in Ibero-America in the early Nineteenth Century, which tended to be wiped out, which were allied to the United States as a cause, in the early Nineteenth Century. Many of these, either directly through the United States, as in the case of the Mexican protectionist movement, which was directly connected to John Quincy Adams. Or movements such as that of Colombia, which was the German movement, which was connected to the republicans in this movement later in Germany.

So, we were destroyed, virtually. Jefferson and Madison were administrations which were under British control. Now, Thomas Jefferson was not a traitor, but Jefferson was a confused mind. He was sort of the Bill Clinton of his age—William Jefferson Clinton. I suppose that has it right.

As long as he was working with Benjamin Franklin, and under Franklin’s influence, Jefferson’s positive side came out, though basically he was a Lockean. But once Franklin was dead, and he came under some perverse French influences, French philosophical influences, he became a confused mind. He returned somewhat to himself in his last years; but, as President, he was a disaster. He was just less a disaster than the outright traitor, Aaron Burr.

James Madison had foisted upon him, as Tony Chaitkin would explain to anybody who needs to know, a Dolly. Now, men should not play with dollies, particularly older men. And, Dolly was a creature of Aaron Burr. The key guy was Albert Gallatin, who was a British agent, who was Secretary of Treasury. And the United States adopted a free trade policy, somewhat like that which Newt Gingrich likes, during the administrations of Jefferson and Madison. So, that was a disaster.

Then, a patriot came back to power, partly because Dolly, when the British were invading Washington, Dolly grabbed her husband, who was really her Dolly, and dragged him off somewhere in Virginia to hide. And James Monroe stayed on post in Washington, and defended Washington, and became the President of the United States, and restored the United States to its dignities. He was succeeded by John Quincy Adams, who was probably the greatest genius the United States had in politics, at any one point. And he was the center of this sort of thing for the United States.

But, during this period, we had friends in Europe, but they weren’t in power. Our friends in Europe included the circles of Lazare Carnot, of the École Polytechnique. They included circles in Germany, the Schiller circles in Germany, and things of that sort.

West Point and the Corps of Engineers

Among the benefits we had from Europe, was that in 1814, some people fled France, the French Bourbon Restoration, which was the Holy Alliance restoration, the British restoration, and went to the United States, and went to West Point, and worked with Commandant Sylvanus Thayer in the rebuilding of West Point, after the War of 1812. West Point became the center of science and engineering in the United States during that period. And from that, we got the Corps of Engineers.

The Corps of Engineers, as provided by the École Polytechnique, was based on the work of Gaspard Monge and his associates in science, and was based on the work of Lazare Carnot, who was the inventor of the principle of machine tool design. It was Lazare Carnot, who, in about a year and a half to two years of his influence over French military policy, applied the machine tool design principle to the conduct and logistics of warfare. He was the first developer of mass production. For example, his mass production—within a year and a half—of French mobile field artillery, changed the character of warfare, among other things that he did.

So, the United States developed an engineering capability, including a machine tool design capability, centered around West Point, and associated with the U.S. Corps of Engineers. And so the patriots continued. Benjamin Franklin’s great-grandson, was a key figure in this operation, directly working with Gauss, and with Alexander von Humboldt in Germany. French science was the original science in the United States. After that, German science, the science of Gauss, Alexander von Humboldt, became American science. The U.S. Coastal Geodetic Survey was an offshoot of the work of Carl Gauss from Germany, for example.

Then we had a bunch of bums. We had outright traitors. Jackson, Andrew Jackson. His controller, a London-controlled Manhattan banker, Martin Van Buren. We had President James Polk, another British agent, a real pig, against whom John Quincy Adams fought his last battle, and Lincoln fought one of his first important battles. You had outright traitors: Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan. These were all free traders, just like Newt Gingrich. Just like the John Birch Society. All free traders and they ruined the United States. They were for free trade, no protection of industry.

The Confederate Insurrection

Well, time came. A conflict was developed in the United States, not about slavery. The conflict was simple: the British were determined to destroy the United States. Their method was to break it up into several parts. The British had three assets in the United States: the New England Yankee opium trader families, the ancestors of McGeorge Bundy; the New York bankers, which included people like Aaron Burr, who was a British agent, an agent directly of British intelligence, British foreign intelligence, and of Baring’s Bank. You had people like Van Buren, a British agent, who destroyed our credit system through his stooge, who developed the so-called Land Bank system, and destroyed this national banking.

Some idiots think that somehow Jackson was, you know, a “populist.” Yeah, he was a populist, but, like most populists, he was an idiot! And he’s a hero because he opposed the bankers. What bankers did he oppose? The patriotic bankers, in favor of the British bankers. 1837, we had the Panic; almost destroyed the United States. Then we had, in the 1840s, Polk, who almost destroyed the United States, betrayed the United States, a British agent. President Franklin Pierce, a British agent. August Belmont, a British agent. The Morgan interests, British agents. And we had the Southern slaveowners.

These three layers have been the curse of the United States.

All right. So, the plan was, the British plan was to start a war between two allies. Remember, the New England slave abolitionists and the Southern slaveowners were members of the same faction. See, the New England abolitionists produced textiles, with slave-produced cotton. The Lowells, and that crowd. Pigs.

Now, the idea was to divide the United States into several parts, the same idea which Prince Philip recently proposed in Washington, D.C.: the dismemberment of the United States into several parts, as a part of environmentalism, ecology, or something.

The Confederacy plot was a plot to get a war started between the secessionist Confederacy and other parts of the United States, in order to get a peace agreement, of which McClellan, General McClellan, was a part— a peace agreement, to establish the recognition of the independence of the Confederacy, which would result in the dismemberment of the United States into a bunch of warring baronies. And Belmont says so in his letter. And he was the controlling agent. He controlled the Democratic Party, so if you think you’ve got problems in the Democratic Party now, we had it then, too. August Belmont, who controlled the Democratic Party, was a traitor, and a British agent, and so was George McClellan. George McClellan refused to win battles when he could, because he was for a separate peace, to recognize the secession. So he would fight to defend Washington, but he wouldn’t fight to destroy Lee’s army when he could.

Abraham Lincoln Launches the Machine Tool Principle

Those are the conditions. So suddenly, a crisis erupts. And, through a combination of forces, Abraham Lincoln, who represents the opposition to this, comes to power. And Lincoln does something which Bill Clinton would never understand. He set out to win a war. He said, “we must defend the Union.” Why? You can’t fight against slavery, unless you create the instrument that destroys slavery. You must destroy slavery on the continent. How do you do that? By crushing the institution which represents slavery, and establishing the institution which prohibits it. And that great amendment, which is the Lincoln amendment to the Constitution, exemplifies this policy. You can not win a war without a victory. To win a victory, you must create an institution, an army. You must win the victory and institutionalize the victory. That’s how you make reforms. And, Lincoln understood that.

So, what did we do? What we did, was what we knew. What we did, is, we mobilized to win total war, as Lazare Carnot had done. The trouble was finding some honest generals to fight the war. Lincoln launched—what? Lazare Carnot’s machine tool design principle: we introduced machine tool design industry and machine tool design methods, to effect, through science, which was largely French and German science, a revolution in technology. The war was not won by the soldiers, though they played their part. The war was not won by the generals, though Grant, and especially Sherman were geniuses. And Sheridan wasn’t so bad.

The war was won in industry. The war was won in logistics, and science, and technology. The war was won by creating an instrument, a United States as a powerful, armed economy, which could destroy the enemy. The Confederacy was doomed not because we had better generals, though in the end we did. The Confederacy was doomed, because the United States was a superior armed agency, determined to win a war against an inferior, immoral, degenerate institution, the Confederacy.

And so, from this, with protectionist methods and repeal of the free market, and with a president who was prepared to make war on Britain, and invade Canada, and so forth, if necessary, we established a really serious economy on this continent. And every nation on this planet, which was serious about serious economy, had no choice but to turn to the American System for that.

A Creeping Treason After Lincoln’s Assassination

Now, after that, as a result of the creeping in of treason, particularly after the Tilden-Hayes scandal, things of that sort, which are a whole subject in themselves, London got a dominant role. Through the Specie Resumption Act by a corrupt Congress, an act was passed, which destroyed the sovereignty of the United States in respect to its own currency. And, through that, the London forces, and their agents inside the United States, grabbed control of the financial apparatus of the United States, and took control of industry, through finance. The fight between Wall Street and Ford, merely typifies what this struggle was about.

So, we begot a dual system of financier oligarchy on top, especially after Teddy Roosevelt became president. But that’s what Grover Cleveland already represented. And, national economy underneath.

As long as we were threatened with a war, and as long as the military still had people like MacArthur in it, people who were Civil War generals, like President McKinley, a Civil War officer of that tradition; as long as the Civil War fighters remained in control, until Teddy Roosevelt took over, we had a patriotic tradition deep in our military and other institutions. Though they tried to destroy our military. At one point, the U.S. Army was so poor, the Congress wouldn’t give money for it, the officers of the U.S. Army reached into their own pockets to pay the enlisted men, because there was no pay for the enlisted men allowed by Congress, as a part of the British effort and a corrupt Congress, to destroy the U.S. military.

So we built. We had these institutions, we had the MacArthurs. And every time we would get into a war, or a threat of a war, we would say we have to have a mobilization. Our mobilization was always modelled upon the Lincoln mobilization. We made revolutions; in World War I, for a short period of time, we made a revolution. Roosevelt, as Undersecretary of the Navy at that time, Franklin Roosevelt, learned that lesson. Roosevelt applied that lesson when he was president, for the mobilization of the United States. We still had that, even under the time that the British got us into this crazy thing with the Soviet Union, we had to mobilize. And, there was still an attempt to mobilize, in a serious way, in the American tradition, strategically. Industry was mobilized. Contracts were given out. Technology spewed forth. We went into an aerospace program. Technology spewed forth.

Then, suddenly, after the [Cuban] Missile Crisis and the killing of President John Kennedy, and the deal between the United States, the McGeorge Bundys and the Brits and the Khrushchovs, they said “we’re not going to have a big war any more. So we can get rid of this industry.” They used that to create a shock, hit upon the Baby Boomers, with known techniques, and brainwashed a whole generation, particularly the campus students, between 1964 and ’72, and laid the seeds, that when this generation of Baby Boomers from the ’64 to ’72 period would come into the top positions in government, in professions, and in industry, education, that the nation would be destroyed by the Baby Boomers. And, that’s what’s happening to us.

And that’s the way you have to understand this. These are the principles. These are the issues. This is the way history works, at least this aspect of history. And, only by understanding this, and applying the principles, in reverse, understanding the reverse implications of how the enemy did us in, can we get the country back. The shock which we’re about to be administered; you’ve seen a shock already. That was only the pre-shock. That’s about four point something on the Richter Scale. Wait for 7, a couple of weeks from now.