My Favorite Month would be April if...

...the Feds abolished the Internal Revenue Service. I love April. It's a time of renewal, not only in nature, but in my spirit. Then the IRS comes along and ruins my seasonal jubilation. I noticed that Scream 4 is coming out on April 15th. Somebody has a sense of humor.

When you're surrendering your hard earned money, the best you can do is keep a sense of humor about it. I play games in the for section of my payment check. This year I decided to write in "for: confiscation." It seems appropriate. After all, Merriam-Webster's first definition for confiscation states: to seize as forfeited to the public treasury.

The best I can do is stay upbeat facing the evils of usurpation as I try to spread the idea of freedom by voluntary allocation and its benefits to society.

American Origins: From the Colonies to the Constitution

I just signed up for a history course taught by Thomas Woods. American Origins: From the Colonies to the Constitution which begins on March 5th. I am really looking forward to it.

I am currently in the middle of my first Mises Academy course How to Think: An Introduction to Logic taught by David Gordon. I must say it is exceptional. If you haven't taken a course from the Mises Academy yet, I highly recommend it. The price is cheaper and the content is better than most brick and mortar university courses.

Why I Recommend and Respect Tom Woods

I am a huge fan of well-known people that take the time to respond thoughtfully to a seemingly unimportant stranger. So, I had a question about a source in Thomas Woods book The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. I obtained his email and asked the following question:

On page 50 of the book there is a box that says "What the Press Said." In it there is a quote as following:

"[It was] merely an incident of the real controversy...[for] possession of the Federal Government is what both North and South are striving for."
-The New York Times in its description of slavery, 1854

When I try to find this source online, all I get is this page: http://www.nytimes.com/1860/07/04/news/the-slavery-question.html

If you read it, there is no mention of the first part of the quote in the article only the second part followed by "and the leading motive of the South is a determination to regard Slavery as their paramount interest, and its protection and perpetuation as their settled policy."

Something is definitely fishy. I tend to trust you far more than I do the New York Times, so I am wondering if I have not found the source you were referring to or if the NYT changed it?

He then graciously responded with:

Mr. Morr:

Grr. This just calls to mind the struggles I had with the publisher during the editing of that book. They wanted to substitute a different box for the one I had, so they chose this. I did not catch that they actually got the date partially wrong; I was referring to three NYT columns, one from 1854 and two from 1860 (May 30 and July 4). It is Eric Foner himself, an extremely pro-Lincoln and pro-Union historian, who notes the significance of the Times' concession: "The New York Times went so far as to claim that slavery itself was 'merely an incident of the real controversy,' since 'possession of the Federal Government is what both North and South are striving for.' In this it was only echoing the views of Webster and other northern Whigs of the 1840s who had opposed the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War on the grounds that any addition of slavery territory and subsequent admission of slave states would upset the balance of sectional power in the South's favor." (Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War, p. 192.)

Tom

For your service to me Tom, I will recommend your latest book Nullification to everyone I know.