Trump, Tariffs and Treason - Part 1
Introduction: Franklin to Lincoln
This is a big story, so it's only right that a brief summary of the material should be given first as a kind of roadmap. References will not be included in this introduction, but rest assured there will be plenty in the coming chapters which will go over all of this in greater detail. I still cannot believe we have a President advocating for tariffs. For the last 15 years I have been studying the history of what became known as the American system of economics, and thought it was sadly just a relic of the past. I could not fathom a President who did not support globalization, who was not pushing their new free trade agreement. Trump’s current fight with the free traders is most welcome, and so I hope some will find this history of the battle useful. The precursors of the American system, which originated in places like the Massachusetts Bay Colony, are too much in the weeds for a piece like this, but suffice it to say the tradition greatly preceded the founding of the republic. The modern incarnation began with Benjamin Franklin, a child of Massachusetts, and an admirer of Cotton Mather’s Essays to do Good.
The central problem which preoccupied most of Ben Franklin’s life and work was the abuses which the British Empire rained down upon the colonies. The British Empire used the military for control of course, but also economic, as well as cultural warfare. Britain insisted on a policy of forcing the colonies to buy from the mother country while simultaneously destroying the native industry that existed in the colonies. Britain encouraged the slave plantations in the South, and through the Royal African Company brought ship after ship of captured African slaves to the Americas. Britain insisted on a policy of free trade with the colonies, meaning the colonies could not protect their manufacturers from British dumping of low-quality, slave-made goods. I was born Canadian, and in many ways my country is emblematic of the British economic model. Being a part of the British Empire historically, and part of the British Commonwealth today, our economic evolution has been largely dependent on pure resource extraction and export, looting our home resources but not using them at home.
Ben Franklin wrote several economic tracts during his life on methods for combating and defeating the abuses of the British economic system. These became the organizing principles around which the economic nationalist faction rallied during the revolutionary period leading up to 1789 and the founding of the republic. Ben Franklin was not just personally responsible for organizing much of this industrial development program throughout the colonies, but also the industrial development of England itself through allies he developed and nurtured, such as the Lunar Society. In America this network evolved into what became the Federalist party and the country’s first pro-Constitution and pro-industrial party, centered around George Washington’s aide-de-camp Alexander Hamilton. Together these Federalists put together the nation’s first economic program centered around industrial development and the improvement of the nation’s infrastructure.
Hamilton outlined several key components of this program in his magnum opus The Report on Manufactures in 1791, one of them being tariffs. Many of these proposals Hamilton was not able to get passed by Congress, however tariffs was one that already had a lot of historical precedent, and thus was allowed, which is a key reason why they are seen as so central to the American system of economics today, but all of Hamilton’s proposals are worth reviewing today when looking through the lens of how to develop a prosperous and advanced technological nation. At its core, the Report on Manufactures is arguing for two things. One, protect American industries, as they guarantee sovereignty and are the core of American economic might. Two, encourage scientific research and development, which then percolates through the economy and improves lives in myriad ways, leading to human flourishing.
Hamilton set the precedent of strong government protection of domestic industries, investment in infrastructure, and a national bank for issuing credit to government and citizens. The first administration under George Washington with Hamilton at the helm of Treasury were a very productive and profitable time in America, a trend we shall see repeated whenever the American system has been applied. However Hamilton had to resign for personal reasons in 1795, and the American system began to decline, especially after 1800 and the election of Thomas Jefferson. In 1804 Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr. Aaron Burr’s rivalry with Hamilton, and his Manhattan Company scam that eventually became Chase Manhattan Bank are an excellent metaphor for this story. The London-allied Wall Street bankers trying to kill the Hamiltonian economic system of industry and development. Aaron Burr also went on to run a secession plot to break the US apart, and mentored many in New York politics, chief among them Martin Van Buren, whom we shall encounter later.
Thomas Jefferson, who is often touted as a champion of liberty, was in fact a southern slaveowner whose interests he represented, and he was particularly hostile to both the American system and Alexander Hamilton personally. Thomas Jefferson brought in the revenue tariff, as an inflationary general tax on importing anything, rather than a protective tariff, which is targeted at goods imported into the country that are also made in the country, and avoiding tariffs on raw materials that are used in manufacturing and agriculture, or on goods that the country is incapable of producing itself, for example tropical fruits like bananas which do not grow well in northern climates. Eventually Jefferson eliminated the tariff altogether. His successor James Madison eliminated Hamilton’s national bank in 1811, and the next year war again broke out with the British during the war of 1812. The disaster of the war showed Madison the importance of a strong federal government, and Madison brought back the protective tariff in 1816, and chartered the second Bank of the United States. This kicked off one of the most productive periods in all of American history called the Era of Good Feelings.
The Era of Good Feelings represented a period before Andrew Jackson where almost everyone was in one party and were largely united behind the Hamiltonian program. The American system had its biggest champions in Henry Clay, Mathew Carey, Daniel Raymond, and John Quincy Adams, but even Thomas Jefferson became convinced that Hamilton’s programs were necessary. At the height of the Era of Good Feelings the nation had a restored protective tariff, John Quincy Adams as President, and Henry Clay as Secretary of State. Students of Alexander Hamilton were spreading his ideas around the world, such as Friedrich List and Germany. List named it the National System, and encouraged Germany to follow the same path as America, through a national customs union called the Zollverein, and through high protective tariffs. List’s work in Germany led to several other European countries adopting the system decades later.
The implications of all this was not lost on the British. The Era of Good Feelings was a pivotal moment for the British Empire. Having failed to conquer their former colonies again in the war of 1812, they watched a revived United States implement an independent banking system outside of their control, a repudiation of their free trade policy with a revived protectionist spirit, and physical economic growth due to technological progress and infrastructure development. The British resolved to take a different tack, whereby they would encourage a divide and conquer strategy to split up the nation, by developing an extensive network of treasonous fifth columnists inside North America. In many ways this is not just a story of Trump and tariffs. The story can not be properly told without including this treason network as well, who were loyal to the ideology of Empire.
The Era of Good Feelings ends where Andrew Jackson takes over from John Quincy Adams. Jackson, a protege of Wall Street bankers Aaron Burr and Martin Van Buren, was a wildly popular war hero and genocidal maniac. Jackson and Van Buren returned to the Jeffersonian free trade model, ended the protective tariff, and waged non-stop war against the second Bank of the United States, whose charter was coming up for renewal in Andrew Jackson’s second term.
Despite the valiant efforts of the nationalist faction, Jackson and Van Buren were able to veto the rechartering of the second Bank of the United States in a highly questionable way. Van Buren then took over in 1837 and predictably there was a massive economic collapse and widespread hardship with the end of the bank and the return to laissez-faire and free trade in America. Some historical lessons it seems are very difficult to learn.
America then entered a 20 year period where the slave power grew, and the northern nationalist faction was pushed to the sidelines except for a few brief periods. During this time the British oligarchy continued developing their treasonous separatist movements in America, centered around a multitude of convergence points. These convergence points included the Wall Street of British agent August Belmont, the Boston Brahmin hot-spot Newburyport, Massachusetts, and the British occult cult the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry and its offshoots, such as the B’nai B’rith, and the Knights of the Golden Circle. The Knights of the Golden Circle operated as a proto-Confederate government, organizing many of the key figures in the coming Civil War. Their grand plan involved creating a new slaveholding empire comprised of the southern US states, as well as Mexico, circling around to the Caribbean Islands, Haiti and Cuba, hence their name. The Golden Circle was to be a slaveholders paradise, helping to breakup the United States in the process. They were fully aligned with the ideology of the British Empire. They supported free trade, states rights, and the gold standard, and were content to remain mere producers of raw materials, with finished products being manufactured in England or elsewhere. The protectionist side of this battle in the Antebellum period was led by Mathew Carey’s son, Henry Charles Carey, and by Henry Clay up until his death, at which point the torch was passed to a new generation of leaders, one of which was Abraham Lincoln.
Essential but unfortunately overlooked aspects of history. This is a necessary work. Well done!