[The Soup Nazi]

(cont'd)

CIVIL WAR

605 “Slaveowners incorrectly thought that the North would enslave them by making their black slaves into their masters. Increasingly, the laborers of the North correctly thought that the South wanted slavery everywhere.”

634-35 With the anti-federalist South seceded and James Buchanan having deliberately emptied the government’s coffers before retreating to Pennsylvania, Lincoln was both freed and compelled to issue U.S. treasury notes called greenbacks. “Greenbacks were not redeemable for gold or silver. They were what some economists call ‘fiat money’—money that it's worth something because the government says it is.”

635 “Gold was coming in from California, where it was being found in creeks and rocks. Gold was coming in from England, which had become dependent on U.S. wheat after its own crops failed. The federal government took in the gold and paid out greenbacks, which carried no interest and bore no date of maturity. They were simply intended to pass from one hand to another, and never be redeemed, only replaced.”

636 “Greenbacks were popular; everyone was heartily sick of the patchwork system of privatized money issued by local banks.”

637 “Everyone had a stake in the survival of the currency, which meant, in the survival of the Union.”

637 “The Homestead Act was put into place—something that the South had been strenuously opposed to. The Land Grant Act apportioned land to public colleges across the country. The National Bankruptcy Act was implemented. The Yosemite wilderness was set aside as a national park.”

640 “The Emancipation Proclamation decommissioned the capitalist womb. Labor was no longer capital. African Americans were no longer born to be collateral. Their bodies were no longer a better monetary value than paper. The US economy was no longer on the negro standard. Not only were the slaves emancipated; so was American money.”

644 The Gettysburg Address’s “fourscore and seven years” dates the “new nation” “brought forth” to the Declaration of Independence, with its “all men are created equal,” not the Constitution.

645 “Pursuant to the Emancipation Proclamation, 166 black regiments were created. The number of African Americans who fought is officially around 180,000, but it seems likely there were more than that.”

646 “From the first encounters between black soldiers and Confederates in battle, the Confederates waged ‘black flag’ or ‘no quarter’ war. Atrocities were routine; taking no prisoners, they slaughtered wounded black soldiers, on occasion bayoneting them repeatedly or beating their brains out with clubs.”

646 At Fort Pillow in Tennessee on April 12-13, 1864, troops led by Nathan Bedford Forrest [the KKK founder whose bust in the Tennessee capitol has been in the news] slaughtered as many as 500 surrendered Black Union soldiers in cold blood.

668 “The history of the slave-breeding industry demonstrates how far the unrestrained pursuit of profit can go.”

644 “Everybody knows what happened to Lincoln.”