The Military Failures of General George Washington

A Skeptic’s Guide to American History (2012)

Episode 4: Washington’s Failures and Real Accomplishments

By Gerald Stoler PhD (2012)

Film Review

Rarely taught in public schools, General George Washington’s military shortcomings during the US War of Independence are the main focus of this presentation.

Unlike most US generals, Washington wasn’t a professional soldier. A Virginia* planter and slave holder, he joined the Virginia colony militia in 1754 and inadvertently started the French and Indian War.**

The Continental Congress chose Washington to lead the Continental Army because they hope the involvement of a high profile Virginian would inspire other Southern colonies to support what began as a New England insurrection in 1775.

The first of Washington’s major military blunders included his 1775 order for his best general Benedict Arnold to take Quebec. More than a third of Arnold’s men were forced to turn back due to their inexperience navigating Canada’s swampy tangle of lakes, streams and rapids. When Arnold finally reached Quebec with 600 starving men and no canon or field artillery, he had no hope of capturing a fortified city and was forced to retreat.

Washington also came under heavy criticism for losing New York City and Philadelphia (to the British) in 1776. The British would make the city their headquarters for the war’s duration. Discontent with these and two other major defeats would lead to the formation of the Conway Cabal, in which senior officers in the Continental Army conspired to replace Washington with the more experienced general Horatio Gates.

General Benedict Arnold’s victory (Washington wasn’t involved) at Saratoga New York was clearly a turning point in the war. When it was followed by Washington’s victories at Trenton and Princeton, France committed military and naval support. In 1781, the combined forces achieved a decisive victory at Yorktown, ultimately convincing the British (who were also at war with France, Spain, Holland and the Holy Roman Empire) to surrender.

The major accomplishments Stoler attributes to Washington were mainly political:

• Suppression of the Newburgh Conspiracy in 1783. This was an attempted coup by Continental Army officers against the Continental Congress.
• Creation of a sound currency and fiscal structure to pay off the national debt incurred by the War of Independence (which I dispute as an accomplishment – see below).***
• He successfully crushed the Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion (1791-93), an insurrection against the federal tax Congress imposed on hard liquor.
• He secured the US Western borders (in part via treaties with Britain and Spain, but largely by massacring Native Americans believed to threaten US security).

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*The French and Indian War (1754-1763) pitted the French and their Native American allies against the British army for ultimate control of North America. The war started when Washington allowed a junior member of his militia to assassinate a captured French officer in cold blood.

**At the time of the War of Independence, the Virginia colony comprised modern day Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.

***The federal government didn’t create any currency (as stipulated in the Constitution) until Lincoln ordered the US Treasury to issue Greenbacks to fund the Civil War. In fact, the US had no standardized currency until Congress passed the National Banking Acts in 1863 and 1864. Until then, all state-chartered private banks issued their own currency. Federal taxes (on liquor and imports) could only be paid with currency issued by the First Bank of the United States. The latter was an 80% (70% foreign owned) privately owned central bank similar to the current Federal Reserve. Moreover the Washington administration paid off their war debts by borrowing more money from private banks, albeit at a lower rate of interest.

The film can be viewed free on Kanopy.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/washington-failures-and-real-accomplishments

Jefferson vs Hamilton: The Dispute that Led to the Two-Party System and Nearly Caused Civil War

A Skeptics Guide to American History (2012)

Episode 4 Confusions About Jefferson and Hamilton

Mark Stoler PhD

Film Review

This presentation traces how the bitter political dispute between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson led to the creation of America’s two-party system – and almost caused civil war.

The two men first clashed when they served in George Washington’s cabinet, where  Jefferson served as Secretary of State and Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury. Their political dispute concerned main areas, the creation of an 80% privately owned (20% government owned) national bank, known as the First Bank of the United States, and the ongoing alliance with France following the French Revolution.

In addition to serving as a depository for import taxes, the First Bank of the United States also had the authority to print bank notes to supplement gold and silver in circulation. Hamilton wanted to create a national bank to help repay the country’s war debts. Jefferson opposed it for two main reasons: first because the US Constitution specifically assigns Congress the power to create money and secondly (which Stoler doesn’t mention) because the vast majority of the bank’s investors were foreign (mainly British). The official ownership breakdown would be 70% foreign investors (see https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/BofUS.htm), 10% domestic investors and 20% government.

Jefferson supported an interpretation of the Constitution that assigned states (as per the 10th amendment) all powers not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Hamilton, in contrast, favored a strong federal government operating in close alliance with wealthy commercial interests (via the national bank).

Hamilton and Jefferson also differed on whether to support the French republic following their revolution. Following the execution of Louis XVI in 1793, numerous European countries (Great Britain, the Holy Roman Empire, Prussia, Russia, and several other monarchies) declared war on France.

As secretary of state, Jefferson believed the US should support the French republic (because he favored republicanism over monarchy, because the French had supported the US colonists during the War of Independence, and because the US had a treaty with France). Hamilton wanted the US to support Britain because he felt trade with the UK was essential for US economic development.

Jefferson also opposed the Jay Treaty* (1794) with the UK, which was extremely unpopular with the American people. Like Jefferson, they feared closer ties with Britain would undermine US independence. Hamilton claimed it was essential to prevent another war with Britain.

The political dispute between Hamilton and Jefferson would give rise to America’s two-party system, with Hamilton and his supporters forming the Federalist Party (1789) and Jefferson and his supporters the Democratic-Republican Party (1792). President John Adams, who supported the Federalist Party, signed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. These were four laws directly primarily against the Democratic-Republican Party.

At the time, most immigrants supported Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party. As well as allowing the president to imprison or deport aliens considered “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States,” the Alien and Sedition Acts (which the Supreme Court later declared unconstitutional) prohibited all speech critical of the federal government. The latter resulted in the prosecution and conviction of many Jeffersonian newspaper owners.

Jefferson and his supporters responded by passing resolutions in the Virginia and Kentucky legislatures declaring the Alien and Sedition Acts unconstitutional. A civil war with northern states was narrowly averted when Jefferson was elected the third president of the US on the Democratic-Republican ticket in 1800.

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*Instead of being negotiated by Jefferson, who was Secretary of State, the Jay Treaty was negotiated by John Jay (a federalist like Hamilton), who was Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. Through this treaty, the British agreed to withdraw their remaining army units from Northwest Territory (all the land west of Pennsylvania, north of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi River and below the Great Lakes). In return, the US agreed to end the confiscation of British loyalist estates and arbitrate the US-Canadian boundary and the settlement of wartime debts owed to British financiers. It also granted Americans limited rights to trade with British colonies in the Caribbean in exchange for some limits on the American export of cotton.

The film can be viewed free on Kanopy.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/confusions-about-jefferson-and-hamilton

All Wars are Bankers’ Wars

All Wars Are Bankers’ Wars

Michael Rivero (2013)

Film Review

The purpose of war, according to this brief documentary by radio host Michael Rivero, is to force central banks on countries that try to issue their own money.He makes a compelling argument, illustrated by numerous historical examples. The film’s main value, in my view, is in dispelling common misconceptions about where money comes from. Contrary to popular belief, western democracies don’t issue the money they use to run government services. They borrow the money at interest from privately owned central banks. In the US, this private central bank is called the Federal Reserve.

The American Revolution

Rivero begins by quoting Benjamin Franklin, who saw George III’s Currency Act as the main trigger for the American Revolution. The Currency Act prohibited colonists from using colony-issued currency. Instead they were required to use English bank notes. The latter were borrowed at interest from the England’s private central bank, the Bank of England. This interest payment amounted to a de facto tax on each and every financial transaction.

After the Revolution, the new American government returned to issuing its own currency. This ended in 1791, when Alexander Hamilton persuaded Congress to appoint a private central bank to finance government services. The First Bank of the United States was funded (at interest) by the Bank of England, which was controlled by Nathan Mayer Rothschild.

The War of 1812

Plagued by inefficiency and corruption, the First Bank of the United States was so unpopular that Congress ignored Rothschild’s threats and refused to renew its charter in 1811. Rothschild, whose control over British money enabled him to control both the economy and Parliament, had warned that Britain would declare war to re-colonize the US unless Congress renewed the charter. Although the US won the War of 1812, they were forced to charter the Second Bank of the United State in 1816 to repay their massive war debt. American’s second central bank lasted until 1832, when voters returned Andrew Jackson to a second term based on a campaign promise to shut it down.

The Civil War

From 1832-1862, the so-called “free banking era,” all banks were state charted. In 1862 Lincoln created a national system of banks to fund the federal government and issue currency. When he authorized the US Treasury to issue $150 million in interest-free “greenbacks,” the London Times called for the destruction of the US because of the major threat this posed to the global economy (i.e. international bankers). To punish Lincoln, England and (and France) would provide financial and material support to the southern Confederacy.

Government-issued currency ended for good in when the Wall Street banks conspired with Woodrow Wilson to create a permanent (private) central bank. The Federal Reserve Act was  written in secret by the US banking establishment and rammed through Congress during the 1913 Christmas recess.

World War I and II

According to Rivero, World War I was also a banker’s war, intended to punish Germany for the strict limitations it imposed on its central bank. At the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles forced Germany to repay all the war debts of the other European countries, even though Germany hadn’t started the war.

Crushed by this war debt, the only way Hitler could salvage the German economy was to abolish Germany’s central bank and return to interest-free government-issued currency. This move, which infuriated international bankers, resulted in rapid Germany re-industrialization when the rest of the developed world was mired in deep economic depression. It was lauded internationally as the “German miracle.”

Meanwhile in 1933, American bankers and industrialists plotted a “Bankers’ Putsch,” an attempted military coup against Roosevelt. Their goal was to install corporate fascism in the US, along the lines of Mussolini’s government in Italy. General Smedley Butler, the war hero they enlisted to lead the coup, foiled it by exposing it to the House McCormick-Dirkson Committee. The largely pro-business committee instituted a cover-up, until journalist John Spivac uncovered their secret report in 1967.

Breton Woods

In 1946, following World War II, forty-four nations signed an agreement at Breton Woods New Hampshire for the US dollar to replace the British pound as the world’s reserve currency. This was done with two stipulations: 1) that the US dollar would be redeemable for gold at a price of $35 an ounce and 2) that the Federal Reserve wouldn’t issue more dollars than they could redeem in gold.

Because the Federal Reserve is a private banking network, the federal government has no control whatsoever over the quantity of US dollars they issue. In 1971, it became obvious that the Fed was issuing far more dollars than it could redeem (the vast majority of money the Fed creates is electronic money – only about 3% is in notes and coins*). When France asked to redeem its dollar reserves for gold, Nixon unilaterally suspended the gold standard agreed at Breton Woods.

The Birth of the Petrodollar

At this point the US dollar became a “fiat” currency, theoretically back by nothing. In reality, it was backed by oil, through a complex agreement whereby the US agreed to “defend” countries (i.e. not destabilize or declare war on them) if they committed to buying and selling oil in dollars, aka “petrodollars.”

According to Rivero, the US invasion against a long list of Muslim countries is an indirect result of this agreement. Islam prohibits lending money at interest. As Rivero points out, none of seven Muslim countries retired General Wesley Clark has identified as targets for US military aggression (Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon) had private central banks prior to US invasion and occupation.**

Historical Inaccuracies

Apart from several minor historical inaccuracies (eg the purpose of Executive Order 11110 that John Kennedy signed in 1961 and Nixon’s alleged pledge of the National Park system as security on US debt), the film serves as an excellent introduction to the hidden role played by private banks in issuing and controlling the global money supply.

 

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*See 97% owned
**Retired General Wesley Clark first revealed the existence of this campaign to conquer the Middle East and North Africa during a Democracy Now interview in 2007.

photo credit: Serfs UP ! Roger Sayles via photopin cc

Also posted at Veterans Today