Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, associate professor of economics at San Jose State University, discusses the major points of contention on U.S. Civil War history, the inextricable link between the Union and liberty in Northern doctrine, why moral rights should supersede constitutional limitations, how the North could have ended slavery in the South without contesting secession, the inability of chattel slavery-based economies to cope with runaways, the numerous bad precedents set while central governmental power grew during the Civil War and why the Articles of Confederation are better than the Constitution.

MP3 here. (52:02)

Jeff Hummel is the author of Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War (Chicago: Open Court, 1996). He teaches both economics and history, and before joining the SJSU economics faculty in the fall of 2002, lectured as an adjunct at Golden Gate University and Santa Clara University. He served in the U.S. Army as a tank platoon leader during the early seventies, was Publications Director for the Independent Institute in Oakland, CA, in the late eighties, and was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, for the 2001-2002 academic year.