Reflections on the Loss of the Freeborn American Nation

Sound Bite

How did American society evolve from a land of independent farmers and entrepreneurs to a nation increasingly shaped by the interests of large corporations and government institutions? Through a tapestry of historical narrative, economic analysis, and personal insight, Dowless crafts a book that is both informative and quietly urgent. Central themes include the debate over whether to have a US central bank, the rise of currency manipulation in the United States, and sources of the US Civil War.

About the Book

This book chronicles the historical debate over whether to have a US central bank, the rise of currency manipulation in the United States, and sources of the US Civil War.

Slavery was not viewed as a moral horror in 1776, when the US Constitution was created, and — the US Civil War was not fought over slavery. This book aims to show that the Federalists, the banking interests, corporations, and very wealthy individuals used and distorted the issue of slavery in order to promote their control over the land, its resources and its people, in the absolute, from the very first day of European landing in North America.

Other, "freedom loving" Americans advocated free enterprise and a light regime of laws that would allow and enable each citizen to prosper according to his abilities — without undue taxation, licensing fees, and other laws geared to protect big corporations.

Mr. Dowless shows that whereas the debate over slave holding was intentionally turned into an emotionally-driven moralistic argument, regrettably slave ownership was, up to the mid-19th century, the only option enabling agricultural plantations to attain economy of scale and thus produce a profit — and not only in the United States. Meanwhile, even our dismal national health care system has been subordinated to the interests of Big Pharma, insurance and other corporate giants and their shareholders.

The argument is documented and illustrated with archival research as well as eye-witness evidence from the past half a century, in which so many of the charming features of small-town America have disappeared. Who ever thought kids could be barred from setting up lemonade stands in their own driveway?