Rothbard on Why Statists and Imperialists Are All Lincoln Worshippers

“[T]he Civil War was really the great turning point . . .  in the increase in State power, because with the Civil War you now have the total introduction of things like railroad land grants, subsidies of big business, permanent high tariffs, which the Jacksonians had been able to whittle away before the Civil War, and a total revolution in the monetary system so that the old pure gold standard was replaced first by greenback paper, and then by the National Banking Act — a controlled banking system.  And for the first time we had the imposition in the United States of an income tax and federal conscription.”  (Not to mention the precedent of waging of total war on civilian populations).

Murray N. Rothbard, “Our Anti-Imperialist Heritage”

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