William Graham Sumner understood the ancient truth that the primary role for average citizens in an empire was to serve as tax slaves and cannon fodder for the ruling class.
Congressman William Lacy Clay
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo Ph.D.
The main source of the lies about me that were told by Congressman William Lacy Clay (D-Big Banks) at Congressman Ron Paul’s Fed hearing on February 9 was the far left-wing, big government-worshipping hate group known as the Southern Poverty Law Center. Referring to one of its laughingly-named “intelligence reports,” the SPLC misinformed Clay that I “work for” an alleged “hate group” called The League of the South. I do not, and never have. (I did lecture to some summer seminar students about nineteenth century economic policy at the invitation of Professors Donald Livingston of Emory University and Clyde Wilson of the University of South Carolina over a decade ago under the auspices of the League of the South Institute, which they were trying to get started. Hate was not one of the lecture topics at that summer seminar for students).
It is a testament to the ignorance and bigotry of the “mainstream” media that any organization with the word “South” in its title is so automatically labeled a “hate group,” or worse. After the hearing I decided to check out the Web site of the League of the South to see just what is said there that would cause such an outburst of, well, hate from the SPLC and its starry-eyed admirers like Congressman Clay, who bloviated about his “great respect” for the SPLC.
Just what – or who – is it that the League of the South hates so much that the SPLC would use language that compares it to some kind of criminal or terrorist organization? The answer to this question is easy to discern, for the League of the South neither pulls its punches nor hides its views on its Web site. What it hates the most is “the American Empire.” In its “Declaration of Southern Cultural Independence,” addressed “To Spineless Politicians,” the League urges “all Southerners to abjure the realm of the American Empire that now threatens the liberties of our families and communities.” In other words, they agree with the great late nineteenth/early twentieth century libertarian sociologist from Yale University, William Graham Sumner, that the transformation of America from a constitutional republic devoted to protecting liberty to an empire has been a disaster. Sumner stated his views in a famous essay entitled “The Conquest of the United States by Spain” in which he argued that the U.S. became like Spain – or more precisely, like the Spanish Empire – after the Spanish-American War. Sumner understood the ancient truth that the primary role for average citizens in an empire was to serve as tax slaves and cannon fodder for the ruling class. So do the people at the League of the South, judging by the writings on its Web site.
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