Ken Masugi is partially right about Tom DiLorenzo’s book, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (2002). It is "awful"—"awful"ly good, even great. Tom DiLorenzo has completely and irrevocably destroyed the myth, the legend, the fable, the fairy tale--the tall tale of Abraham Lincoln, American’s first military dictator and its first Presidente after the violent regime change of 1861.
THE INDICTMENT
Before discussing the reviews and reaction, let’s review DiLorenzo’s findings. He makes about 71 discrete factual, legal, political, or moral accusations or allegations against or about Lincoln or his subordinates as follows:
1. Saying contradictory things before different audiences.
2. Opposing racial equality.
3. Opposing giving blacks the right to vote, serve on juries or intermarry while allegedly supporting their natural rights.
4. Being a racist.
5. Supporting the legal rights of slaveholders.
6. Supporting Clay’s American System or mercantilism as his primary political agenda: national bank, high tariff, and internal improvements.
7. Supporting a political economy that encourages corruption and inefficiency.
8. Supporting a political economy that became the blueprint for modern American.
9. Being a wealthy railroad lawyer.
10. Never defending a runaway slave.
11. Defending a slaveholder against his runaway slave.
12. Favoring returning ex-slaves to Africa or sending them to Central America and Haiti.
13. Proposing to strengthen the Fugitive Slave law.
14. Opposing the extension of slavery in the territories so that "free white people" can settle there and because allowing them to become slave states would dilute Republican influence in Congress because of the three-fifths rule.
15. Opposing black citizenship in Illinois or their right to immigrate to that state.
16. Failing to use his legendary political skills to achieve peaceful emancipation as was accomplished elsewhere--Lincoln's war was the only "war of emancipation" in the 19th century.
17. Nullifying emancipation of slaves in Missouri and Georgia early in the war.
18. Stating that his primary motive was saving the union and not ending slavery.
19. Supporting a conscription law.
20. Sending troops into New York City to quell draft riots related to his emancipation proclamation, resulting in 300 to 1,000 deaths.
21. Starting a war that took the lives of 620,000 soldiers and 50,000 civilians and caused incalculable economic loss.
22. Being an enemy of free market capitalism.
23. Being an economic illiterate and espousing the labor theory of value.
24. Supporting a disastrous public works project in Illinois and continuing to support the same policies oblivious of the consequences.
25. Conjuring up a specious and deceptive argument against the historically-recognized right of state secession.
26. Lying about re-supplying the fed’s tax collection office known as Fort Sumter.
27. Refusing to see peace commissioners from the Confederacy offering to pay for all federal property in the South.
28. Refusing to see Napoleon III of France who offered to mediate the dispute.
29. Provoking Virginia to secede by taking military action against the Deep South.
30. Supporting a tariff and other policies that systematically redistributed wealth from the South to the North, causing great consternation in the South.
31. Invading the South without consulting Congress.
32. Illegally declaring martial law.
33. Illegally blockading ports.
34. Illegally suspending habeas corpus.
35. Illegally imprisoning thousands of Northern citizens.
36. Tolerating their subjection to inhumane conditions in prison.
37. Systematically attacking Northern newspapers and their employees, including by imprisonment.
38. Deporting his chief political enemy in the North, Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio.
39. Confiscating private property and firearms.
40. Ignoring the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
41. Tolerating the arrest of ministers who refused to pray for Lincoln.
42. Arresting several duly elected members of the Maryland Legislature along with the mayor of Baltimore and Maryland Congressman Henry May.
43. Placing Kansas and Kentucky under martial law.
44. Supporting a law that indemnified public officials for unlawful acts.
45. Laying the groundwork for the establishment of conscription and income taxation as permanent institutions.
46. Interfering with and rigging elections in Maryland and elsewhere in the North.
47. Censoring all telegraph communication.
48. Preventing opposition newspapers from being delivered by the post office.
49. Illegally creating the state of West Virginia out of the "indestructible" state of Virginia.
50. Tolerating or supporting mistreatment of citizens in conquered territory.
51. Taxing those citizens without their consent.
52. Executing those who refused to take a loyalty oath.
53. Closing churches and arresting ministers.
54. Burning and plundering Southern cites.
55. Quartering troops in private homes unlawfully.
56. Creating an enormous political patronage system.
57. Allowing an unjust mass execution of Sioux Indians in Minnesota.
58. Engineering a constitutional revolution through military force which destroyed state sovereignty and replaced it with rule by the Supreme Court (and the United States Army).
59. Laying the groundwork for the imperialist and militarist campaigns of the future as well as the welfare/warfare state.
60. Creating the dangerous precedent of establishing a strong consolidated state out of a decentralized confederation.
61. Effectively killing secession as a threat, thus encouraging the rise of our modern federal monolith.
62. Waging war on civilians by bombing, destruction of homes, and confiscation of food and farm equipment.
63. Tolerating an atmosphere which led to large numbers of rapes against Southern women, including slaves.
64. Using civilians as hostages.
65. Promoting a general because of his willingness to use his troops as cannon fodder.
66. DiLorenzo blames Lincoln for the predictable aftermath of the war: the plundering of the South by Lincoln’s allies.
67. Supporting government subsidies of the railroads leading to corruption and inefficiency.
68. Supporting a nationalized paper currency which is inherently inflationary.
69. Creating the federal tax bureaucracy and various taxes that are still with us.
70. Establishing precedents for centralized powers and suppression of liberties that continue to be cited today.
71. Ending slavery by means that created turbulence that continues to this day.
THE FIRST DEFENSE—SHOOT THE MESSENGER
Thus, DiLorenzo makes over seventy separate allegations against or about Lincoln or as part of his overall case against Lincoln. (Perhaps I missed a few or possibly there is a little duplication in my list.) What do DiLorenzo's reviewers say about these allegations? Very little. Instead of dealing with these charges, his opponents spent most of their efforts attacking a few citations. The only such alleged error that is anything other than a technicality or difference of opinion concerns Lincoln’s racism.”
I'm well versed in DiLorenzo's works. Some of his grievances are legitimate, though in many cases he's guilty at the Presentism I take aim at in this article.
I don't defend Lincoln's war record on civil liberties or anything like that, which was chilling (much of my Master's thesis explored it). You don't destroy the Constitution to save it (which was his reasoning for doing so).
Lincoln got the Union question wrong, but I understand why he did what he did. There was no way he could win in 1861 once the Confederacy took up arms and opened fire on Sumter. If he breaks his word at that point and let's the South break free, he may very well have been executed in the North for treason. He'd said the Southern states had no constitutional right to secede (though the People held the right to alter the Constitution), and had pledged to defend the Constitution. A peaceful and solution may have emerged if the South had pursued a legal course, but they didn't. They chose war. It's a long and tragic story. It didn't just kill close to a million people; it also destroyed the Constitution and the American system (first slowly and later rapidly), and would ultimately usher in nearly a century of Jim Crow.
Granted, it crushed the curse of slavery. Some would argue there was no price too high for purging its sin. But I believe the evil system would have slowly died over the next generation. and without the blood or turmoil that followed.
So I've arrived at this weird place where I very much admire Lincoln the man, even though I disapprove of the actions he took. I, of course, have the benefit of history.
Jon, I just read your reply now, March 2 (NZ time) after I posted my comment with copious quotes and references to make my case why you should not admire a moral misfit like Lincoln.
You write you know DiLorenzo’s work and cannot defend Dishonest Abe’s non-civil war on civil liberties during the non-civil civil war, accurately described as the “War of Succession”—but you still “very much admire Lincoln the man, even though I disapprove of the actions he took”.
I disagree with most of what you wrote below such as the South “chose war” instead of a “legal course” to settle the wholly one-sided aggression by the North who actually started the war. I, along with other more qualified researchers, do NOT accept that the South “caused” the war by firing first upon the North’s Fort Sumter. The historical analogy I use is that of the Pearl Harbor strike by the Japanese did NOT start WW2. I think you know of the research on this event and how FDR and his fellow criminals knew the strike was coming and not only caused it but helped it happen? An article on Sumter to this point: https://www2.tulane.edu/~sumter/Reflections/LinWar.html
Just as I do not condone the U.S. government criminals of WW2, neither do I condone the Japanese government criminals. If I were an able adult in 1941 living in the U.S. I would have attempted to remain free of this staged slaughter as I did in the Vietnam war days when I escaped criminal U.S. injustice by moving to Canada 1967.
I watched Abraham Lincoln: American Dictator by The Rageaholic. I can only hope you value reason and freedom enough to watch this video exposure of Lincoln the evil murderer (yes, those words are justified to be used to describe him). I look forward to your reply after you watch it. His references are there and his case, is to me, indisputably conclusive concerning Lincoln the Dictator.
Stay safe but first, get free, then stay free.
In good faith and with care, Voluntaryist Jack.
Abraham Lincoln: American Dictator. The Rageaholic, Jan 15, 2023. 1-07-23
Sic Semper TyRANTis! Chapter 1 - "Muh Lost Cause" - 00:02:07 Chapter 2 - "The Great Emancipator" - 00:13:09 Chapter 3 - "The Benevolent Dictator" - 00:29:34 Chapter 4 - "The War Lincoln Wanted" - 00:47:26
Bibliography:
'Lincolnomics: How President Lincoln Constructed The Great American Economy' by John F. Wasik
'The New York City Draft Riots' by Iver Bernstein
'Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men' by Jeffrey Roger Hummel
'For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought the Civil War' by James MacPherson
'Team of Rivals' by Doris Kearns Goodwin
'The Real Lincoln' by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
'Lincoln Unmasked' by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
'William Tecumseh Sherman: A Memoir' by William Tecumseh Sherman
'South Carolina Civilians in Sherman's Path' by Karen Stokes
'Lincoln Takes Command: How Lincoln Got The War He Wanted' by John Shipley Tilley
'And Then There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle' by John Meacham
'Documents Relating to New England Federalism' by Henry Adams
'Henry Clay and the American System' by Maurice Baxter
'The Rise and Decline of the Confederate Government' by Jefferson Davis
'Lincoln Reconsidered' by David Donald
'Total War and the Constitution' by Edward S. Corwin '
Jon, well done to expose the immature immoralities, and in some cases, outright evils, of those famous ones the indoctrinated never question.
Add Frederick Douglass to your list, see quote below.
Anti-libertarian writers like Cynthia Chung cherry-pick quotes from Douglass to support their view of Lincoln as liberating saint and savior of the “United” States of AmeriKa (sic-K)
Here is Douglass, whose schizophrenic mind on Lincoln did worship him, letting the other side of itself speak its truth:
“Oration By Frederick Douglass, Delivered On The Occasion Of The Unveiling Of The Freedmen's Monument, In Memory Of Abraham Lincoln, In Lincoln Park, Washington, D. C, April 14, 1876.”
Abraham Lincoln—The White Man's President.
“Truth is proper and heautiful at all times and in all places and it is never in any case more proper and beautiful than when one is speaking of a great public man whose example is likely to be commended for honor and imitation long after his departure to the solemn shades, —the silent continents of eternity. It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, that Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought and in his prejudices, he was a white man.
He was preeminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people in order to promote the welfare of the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the States where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed constitutional guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave States. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though the guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration. Knowing this, I concede to you, my white fellow citizens, a preeminence in this worship at once full and supreme. First, midst, and last, you and yours were the objects of his deepest affection and his most earnest solicitude. You are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best only his step-children, children by adoption, children by force of circumstances and necessity.” P.588-589
I'm actually a big fan of not just Douglass but *gulp* Lincoln. I think Lincoln was one of the most moral and upright men in history (not just the presidency) and a peaceful man, which makes it a sad irony that history placed him in a predicament to wage the bloodiest war in US history. I don't think Lincoln wanted the war, and I think it was a mistake to wage it—but I understand why he believed he had to after For Sumter.
Believing all this is why I was never a fan of this particular Frederick Douglass quote. I think it's deeply unfair to view Lincoln as a "white man"s" president. In 1861 Lincoln was doing everything he could to maintain the union, avoid war, and uphold the Constitution. The sad part is he only succeeded in achieving the first of these things, which I think was the least important.
I know my take is highly unusual for libertarians, who tend to see Lincoln as a a tyrant.
Hi, Jon. This will be short on my words but not sweet for you. IF you have read/watched (as I thought you wrote here that you knew his work, but I cannot seem to find your words now, you deleted them?) DiLorenzo's voluminously detailed X-rays of Lincoln that find hardly a moral bone in that thin body of nothing but bones, THEN you cannot conclude he was "one of the most moral and upright men in history". You cannot, that is, IF you are even an individualist Libertarian, let alone a Voluntaryist.
I am going to post on my Substack on Lincoln and persons like yourself who do, obviously, value freedom, in your own ways, but still are attracted to “Leaders”, aka, “Rulers”, who obviously do NOT value others’ freedom, only their own to take away the others’.
Wait for my post, meanwhile keep safe and at least partially free as you seem to me to have chosen to be.
Perfect quote for you to consider, and please read below from which this was taken. “The people do not even yet know the crimes that have been committed in the name of Liberty.” From American Bastille, primary research, 1871.
I have not watched much of this yet but he seems to be on a well-founded track.
Abraham Lincoln: American Dictator The Rageaholic, Jan 15, 2023 1:07:23
"What Shall We Do with the Negro?": Lincoln, White Racism, and Civil War America by Paul D. Escott, 2009
From a review
“I have read quite a number of books on Abraham Lincoln. In contemplating all of the books that I've read, I would recommend this one, more than any other, because of its near-obsessive and honest account of the truth. I say this knowing that this book is not specifically focused on Lincoln. One of the things that this book reinforces, and lines up with, in all of the others that I've read, is that Abraham Lincoln's paramount and principle object during The Civil War, was to restore the Union. In that effort, any and everything could be potentially sacrificed, including the potential freedom of African-Americans. No sane, self-respecting African-American reader of History would condone this sacrifice. Lincoln openly said for the better part of The War, that he would not have a problem with slaves REMAINING slaves, if he could restore The Union.”
Lincoln Uncensored Kindle Edition by Joseph Fallon
“Americans only know the Lincoln presented in official histories or Hollywood movies. In these accounts, he is a champion of democracy, an apostle of racial equality, and a paragon of social justice. These are tales, however, of a man who never was.
Lincoln did not establish liberty in America; he unleashed terror on Americans. Lincoln shredded the Constitution; ignored the courts; obstructed free and fair elections; criminalized speech; outlawed dissent; refused to honor existing treaties with Indian nations; proclaimed women and children, the sick, and the elderly legitimate military targets; and waged an unprovoked and illegal war, which killed more than 600,000 Americans.
Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, it is time for us to pull back the curtain and expose the man behind the myth. Let Lincoln speak for Lincoln.”
“Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, by Lerone Bennett, Jr.
The Truth-Splitter 12/01/2000 David Gordon
To this way of thinking, Lincoln fought for the universal human rights proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. He regarded the Union as the "last, best hope on earth" for a government "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Accordingly, he did his utmost to preserve the Union and to end what he regarded as the greatest imperfection of that Union: Negro slavery.
This view of Lincoln by no means is restricted to mythologists in the style of Carl Sandburg. Quite the contrary, scholars such as Harry Jaffa, the leading promoter of Lincoln-as-philosophical-statesman, accept this view in its entirety. Lerone Bennett does not mention Jaffa in his outstanding new book, but the entire volume massively refutes his position. As Bennett abundantly shows, Lincoln cared little for blacks and wished them to leave the United States.”
“Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe, by Thomas DiLorenzo. 07/01/2007 David Gordon
Thomas DiLorenzo calls attention to a vital fact that demolishes the popular view that one of Lincoln's primary motives for opposing secession in 1861 was his distaste for slavery. Precisely the opposite was the case.”
Judge H “The people do not even yet know the crimes that have been committed in the name of Liberty.” Preface, p.xii
Author “In conversation with Lord Lyons, Mr. Seward said, "My lord, l can touch a bell on my right hand, and order the arrest of a citizen of Ohio ; l can touch a bell again, and order the imprisonment of a citizen of New York ; and no power on earth, except that of the President, can release them. Can the Queen of England do so much ?” p.xiii
Judge H “Someday the history of the political imprisonments during the late Administration [LINCOLN] will be written, and what a sad chapter to be read by posterity! It makes my heart sick to think that in this land of so-called liberty there has been so much oppression. We can no longer point to the Bastiles of France—the Towers and castles of England, as"barbarous relics of a barbarous age." The American Bastile is now identified with the institutions of our country. Here the word of the informer was the law—the sound of the "little bell" the signal—and the telegraph the messenger. Citizens were arrested by thousands, and incar-cerated without warrant. Judges were torn from the bench, bruised and bleeding. Ministers of the Gospel, while performing the sacred and holy duties of their offices, were stricken down, dragged through the streets, and imprisoned. Women were incarcerated, and subjected to insult and outrage. Doctors were ruthlessly taken from the bedside of the dying patient, and immured for months without warrant, and lawyers arrested and consigned to the same cells with their clients, whose release they were endeavoring to effect. Post-offices were searched; newspapers seized and suppressed, while the editors were handcuffed and secretly hurried to prison. The writ of Habeas Corpus was a blank, and all our inheritable rights, “poor, poor, dumb mouths." p.xv
Author. The encroachments upon the personal rights of American citizens, during the Administration of President Lincoln, would not inspire one with the idea that we had much of liberty to lose, or, at least, be in a condition to transplant it into other countries, or among other peoples. Far better would it be, to inscribe on the brow of the Goddess of Liberty, over the dome of the Capitol at Washington, the ancient inscription over the entrance into the Temple of Apollo, at Delphi—"Know Thyself," than attempt to preach liberty abroad, when we do not enjoy it at home.” p.xix
Presentism is a genuine problem today, and as say, a genuinely arrogant position.
Wow! Jon! Have you read any of DiLorenzo's books on Lincoln?! If not, please do. Start with this:
DiLorenzo and His Critics on the Lincoln Myth Mises.org 04/15/2003 James Ostrowski https://mises.org/library/dilorenzo-and-his-critics-lincoln-myth
“INTRODUCTION
Ken Masugi is partially right about Tom DiLorenzo’s book, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (2002). It is "awful"—"awful"ly good, even great. Tom DiLorenzo has completely and irrevocably destroyed the myth, the legend, the fable, the fairy tale--the tall tale of Abraham Lincoln, American’s first military dictator and its first Presidente after the violent regime change of 1861.
THE INDICTMENT
Before discussing the reviews and reaction, let’s review DiLorenzo’s findings. He makes about 71 discrete factual, legal, political, or moral accusations or allegations against or about Lincoln or his subordinates as follows:
1. Saying contradictory things before different audiences.
2. Opposing racial equality.
3. Opposing giving blacks the right to vote, serve on juries or intermarry while allegedly supporting their natural rights.
4. Being a racist.
5. Supporting the legal rights of slaveholders.
6. Supporting Clay’s American System or mercantilism as his primary political agenda: national bank, high tariff, and internal improvements.
7. Supporting a political economy that encourages corruption and inefficiency.
8. Supporting a political economy that became the blueprint for modern American.
9. Being a wealthy railroad lawyer.
10. Never defending a runaway slave.
11. Defending a slaveholder against his runaway slave.
12. Favoring returning ex-slaves to Africa or sending them to Central America and Haiti.
13. Proposing to strengthen the Fugitive Slave law.
14. Opposing the extension of slavery in the territories so that "free white people" can settle there and because allowing them to become slave states would dilute Republican influence in Congress because of the three-fifths rule.
15. Opposing black citizenship in Illinois or their right to immigrate to that state.
16. Failing to use his legendary political skills to achieve peaceful emancipation as was accomplished elsewhere--Lincoln's war was the only "war of emancipation" in the 19th century.
17. Nullifying emancipation of slaves in Missouri and Georgia early in the war.
18. Stating that his primary motive was saving the union and not ending slavery.
19. Supporting a conscription law.
20. Sending troops into New York City to quell draft riots related to his emancipation proclamation, resulting in 300 to 1,000 deaths.
21. Starting a war that took the lives of 620,000 soldiers and 50,000 civilians and caused incalculable economic loss.
22. Being an enemy of free market capitalism.
23. Being an economic illiterate and espousing the labor theory of value.
24. Supporting a disastrous public works project in Illinois and continuing to support the same policies oblivious of the consequences.
25. Conjuring up a specious and deceptive argument against the historically-recognized right of state secession.
26. Lying about re-supplying the fed’s tax collection office known as Fort Sumter.
27. Refusing to see peace commissioners from the Confederacy offering to pay for all federal property in the South.
28. Refusing to see Napoleon III of France who offered to mediate the dispute.
29. Provoking Virginia to secede by taking military action against the Deep South.
30. Supporting a tariff and other policies that systematically redistributed wealth from the South to the North, causing great consternation in the South.
31. Invading the South without consulting Congress.
32. Illegally declaring martial law.
33. Illegally blockading ports.
34. Illegally suspending habeas corpus.
35. Illegally imprisoning thousands of Northern citizens.
36. Tolerating their subjection to inhumane conditions in prison.
37. Systematically attacking Northern newspapers and their employees, including by imprisonment.
38. Deporting his chief political enemy in the North, Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio.
39. Confiscating private property and firearms.
40. Ignoring the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
41. Tolerating the arrest of ministers who refused to pray for Lincoln.
42. Arresting several duly elected members of the Maryland Legislature along with the mayor of Baltimore and Maryland Congressman Henry May.
43. Placing Kansas and Kentucky under martial law.
44. Supporting a law that indemnified public officials for unlawful acts.
45. Laying the groundwork for the establishment of conscription and income taxation as permanent institutions.
46. Interfering with and rigging elections in Maryland and elsewhere in the North.
47. Censoring all telegraph communication.
48. Preventing opposition newspapers from being delivered by the post office.
49. Illegally creating the state of West Virginia out of the "indestructible" state of Virginia.
50. Tolerating or supporting mistreatment of citizens in conquered territory.
51. Taxing those citizens without their consent.
52. Executing those who refused to take a loyalty oath.
53. Closing churches and arresting ministers.
54. Burning and plundering Southern cites.
55. Quartering troops in private homes unlawfully.
56. Creating an enormous political patronage system.
57. Allowing an unjust mass execution of Sioux Indians in Minnesota.
58. Engineering a constitutional revolution through military force which destroyed state sovereignty and replaced it with rule by the Supreme Court (and the United States Army).
59. Laying the groundwork for the imperialist and militarist campaigns of the future as well as the welfare/warfare state.
60. Creating the dangerous precedent of establishing a strong consolidated state out of a decentralized confederation.
61. Effectively killing secession as a threat, thus encouraging the rise of our modern federal monolith.
62. Waging war on civilians by bombing, destruction of homes, and confiscation of food and farm equipment.
63. Tolerating an atmosphere which led to large numbers of rapes against Southern women, including slaves.
64. Using civilians as hostages.
65. Promoting a general because of his willingness to use his troops as cannon fodder.
66. DiLorenzo blames Lincoln for the predictable aftermath of the war: the plundering of the South by Lincoln’s allies.
67. Supporting government subsidies of the railroads leading to corruption and inefficiency.
68. Supporting a nationalized paper currency which is inherently inflationary.
69. Creating the federal tax bureaucracy and various taxes that are still with us.
70. Establishing precedents for centralized powers and suppression of liberties that continue to be cited today.
71. Ending slavery by means that created turbulence that continues to this day.
THE FIRST DEFENSE—SHOOT THE MESSENGER
Thus, DiLorenzo makes over seventy separate allegations against or about Lincoln or as part of his overall case against Lincoln. (Perhaps I missed a few or possibly there is a little duplication in my list.) What do DiLorenzo's reviewers say about these allegations? Very little. Instead of dealing with these charges, his opponents spent most of their efforts attacking a few citations. The only such alleged error that is anything other than a technicality or difference of opinion concerns Lincoln’s racism.”
I'm well versed in DiLorenzo's works. Some of his grievances are legitimate, though in many cases he's guilty at the Presentism I take aim at in this article.
I don't defend Lincoln's war record on civil liberties or anything like that, which was chilling (much of my Master's thesis explored it). You don't destroy the Constitution to save it (which was his reasoning for doing so).
Lincoln got the Union question wrong, but I understand why he did what he did. There was no way he could win in 1861 once the Confederacy took up arms and opened fire on Sumter. If he breaks his word at that point and let's the South break free, he may very well have been executed in the North for treason. He'd said the Southern states had no constitutional right to secede (though the People held the right to alter the Constitution), and had pledged to defend the Constitution. A peaceful and solution may have emerged if the South had pursued a legal course, but they didn't. They chose war. It's a long and tragic story. It didn't just kill close to a million people; it also destroyed the Constitution and the American system (first slowly and later rapidly), and would ultimately usher in nearly a century of Jim Crow.
Granted, it crushed the curse of slavery. Some would argue there was no price too high for purging its sin. But I believe the evil system would have slowly died over the next generation. and without the blood or turmoil that followed.
So I've arrived at this weird place where I very much admire Lincoln the man, even though I disapprove of the actions he took. I, of course, have the benefit of history.
Jon, I just read your reply now, March 2 (NZ time) after I posted my comment with copious quotes and references to make my case why you should not admire a moral misfit like Lincoln.
You write you know DiLorenzo’s work and cannot defend Dishonest Abe’s non-civil war on civil liberties during the non-civil civil war, accurately described as the “War of Succession”—but you still “very much admire Lincoln the man, even though I disapprove of the actions he took”.
I disagree with most of what you wrote below such as the South “chose war” instead of a “legal course” to settle the wholly one-sided aggression by the North who actually started the war. I, along with other more qualified researchers, do NOT accept that the South “caused” the war by firing first upon the North’s Fort Sumter. The historical analogy I use is that of the Pearl Harbor strike by the Japanese did NOT start WW2. I think you know of the research on this event and how FDR and his fellow criminals knew the strike was coming and not only caused it but helped it happen? An article on Sumter to this point: https://www2.tulane.edu/~sumter/Reflections/LinWar.html
Just as I do not condone the U.S. government criminals of WW2, neither do I condone the Japanese government criminals. If I were an able adult in 1941 living in the U.S. I would have attempted to remain free of this staged slaughter as I did in the Vietnam war days when I escaped criminal U.S. injustice by moving to Canada 1967.
I watched Abraham Lincoln: American Dictator by The Rageaholic. I can only hope you value reason and freedom enough to watch this video exposure of Lincoln the evil murderer (yes, those words are justified to be used to describe him). I look forward to your reply after you watch it. His references are there and his case, is to me, indisputably conclusive concerning Lincoln the Dictator.
Stay safe but first, get free, then stay free.
In good faith and with care, Voluntaryist Jack.
Abraham Lincoln: American Dictator. The Rageaholic, Jan 15, 2023. 1-07-23
340,146 views Jan 15, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pZG7snE7tU
Sic Semper TyRANTis! Chapter 1 - "Muh Lost Cause" - 00:02:07 Chapter 2 - "The Great Emancipator" - 00:13:09 Chapter 3 - "The Benevolent Dictator" - 00:29:34 Chapter 4 - "The War Lincoln Wanted" - 00:47:26
Bibliography:
'Lincolnomics: How President Lincoln Constructed The Great American Economy' by John F. Wasik
'The New York City Draft Riots' by Iver Bernstein
'Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men' by Jeffrey Roger Hummel
'For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought the Civil War' by James MacPherson
'Team of Rivals' by Doris Kearns Goodwin
'The Real Lincoln' by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
'Lincoln Unmasked' by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
'William Tecumseh Sherman: A Memoir' by William Tecumseh Sherman
'South Carolina Civilians in Sherman's Path' by Karen Stokes
'Lincoln Takes Command: How Lincoln Got The War He Wanted' by John Shipley Tilley
'And Then There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle' by John Meacham
'Documents Relating to New England Federalism' by Henry Adams
'Henry Clay and the American System' by Maurice Baxter
'The Rise and Decline of the Confederate Government' by Jefferson Davis
'Lincoln Reconsidered' by David Donald
'Total War and the Constitution' by Edward S. Corwin '
14 Months in American Bastiles' by Frank Key
Jon, well done to expose the immature immoralities, and in some cases, outright evils, of those famous ones the indoctrinated never question.
Add Frederick Douglass to your list, see quote below.
Anti-libertarian writers like Cynthia Chung cherry-pick quotes from Douglass to support their view of Lincoln as liberating saint and savior of the “United” States of AmeriKa (sic-K)
https://strategic-culture.org/news/2020/07/05/a-historical-reminder-of-what-defines-united-states-told-by-former-slave/
Here is Douglass, whose schizophrenic mind on Lincoln did worship him, letting the other side of itself speak its truth:
“Oration By Frederick Douglass, Delivered On The Occasion Of The Unveiling Of The Freedmen's Monument, In Memory Of Abraham Lincoln, In Lincoln Park, Washington, D. C, April 14, 1876.”
Abraham Lincoln—The White Man's President.
“Truth is proper and heautiful at all times and in all places and it is never in any case more proper and beautiful than when one is speaking of a great public man whose example is likely to be commended for honor and imitation long after his departure to the solemn shades, —the silent continents of eternity. It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, that Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought and in his prejudices, he was a white man.
He was preeminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people in order to promote the welfare of the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the States where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed constitutional guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave States. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though the guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration. Knowing this, I concede to you, my white fellow citizens, a preeminence in this worship at once full and supreme. First, midst, and last, you and yours were the objects of his deepest affection and his most earnest solicitude. You are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best only his step-children, children by adoption, children by force of circumstances and necessity.” P.588-589
Thanks, Jack!
I'm actually a big fan of not just Douglass but *gulp* Lincoln. I think Lincoln was one of the most moral and upright men in history (not just the presidency) and a peaceful man, which makes it a sad irony that history placed him in a predicament to wage the bloodiest war in US history. I don't think Lincoln wanted the war, and I think it was a mistake to wage it—but I understand why he believed he had to after For Sumter.
Believing all this is why I was never a fan of this particular Frederick Douglass quote. I think it's deeply unfair to view Lincoln as a "white man"s" president. In 1861 Lincoln was doing everything he could to maintain the union, avoid war, and uphold the Constitution. The sad part is he only succeeded in achieving the first of these things, which I think was the least important.
I know my take is highly unusual for libertarians, who tend to see Lincoln as a a tyrant.
Hi, Jon. This will be short on my words but not sweet for you. IF you have read/watched (as I thought you wrote here that you knew his work, but I cannot seem to find your words now, you deleted them?) DiLorenzo's voluminously detailed X-rays of Lincoln that find hardly a moral bone in that thin body of nothing but bones, THEN you cannot conclude he was "one of the most moral and upright men in history". You cannot, that is, IF you are even an individualist Libertarian, let alone a Voluntaryist.
I am going to post on my Substack on Lincoln and persons like yourself who do, obviously, value freedom, in your own ways, but still are attracted to “Leaders”, aka, “Rulers”, who obviously do NOT value others’ freedom, only their own to take away the others’.
Wait for my post, meanwhile keep safe and at least partially free as you seem to me to have chosen to be.
Perfect quote for you to consider, and please read below from which this was taken. “The people do not even yet know the crimes that have been committed in the name of Liberty.” From American Bastille, primary research, 1871.
I have not watched much of this yet but he seems to be on a well-founded track.
Abraham Lincoln: American Dictator The Rageaholic, Jan 15, 2023 1:07:23
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pZG7snE7tU
https://archive.org/details/youtube--pZG7snE7tU
"What Shall We Do with the Negro?": Lincoln, White Racism, and Civil War America by Paul D. Escott, 2009
From a review
“I have read quite a number of books on Abraham Lincoln. In contemplating all of the books that I've read, I would recommend this one, more than any other, because of its near-obsessive and honest account of the truth. I say this knowing that this book is not specifically focused on Lincoln. One of the things that this book reinforces, and lines up with, in all of the others that I've read, is that Abraham Lincoln's paramount and principle object during The Civil War, was to restore the Union. In that effort, any and everything could be potentially sacrificed, including the potential freedom of African-Americans. No sane, self-respecting African-American reader of History would condone this sacrifice. Lincoln openly said for the better part of The War, that he would not have a problem with slaves REMAINING slaves, if he could restore The Union.”
https://www.amazon.com/What-Shall-We-Do-Negro/dp/0813927862/ref=sr_1_1?
Lincoln Uncensored Kindle Edition by Joseph Fallon
“Americans only know the Lincoln presented in official histories or Hollywood movies. In these accounts, he is a champion of democracy, an apostle of racial equality, and a paragon of social justice. These are tales, however, of a man who never was.
Lincoln did not establish liberty in America; he unleashed terror on Americans. Lincoln shredded the Constitution; ignored the courts; obstructed free and fair elections; criminalized speech; outlawed dissent; refused to honor existing treaties with Indian nations; proclaimed women and children, the sick, and the elderly legitimate military targets; and waged an unprovoked and illegal war, which killed more than 600,000 Americans.
Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, it is time for us to pull back the curtain and expose the man behind the myth. Let Lincoln speak for Lincoln.”
https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Uncensored-Joseph-Fallon-ebook/dp/B009FMPGQ2/ref=sr_1_1?
“Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, by Lerone Bennett, Jr.
The Truth-Splitter 12/01/2000 David Gordon
To this way of thinking, Lincoln fought for the universal human rights proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. He regarded the Union as the "last, best hope on earth" for a government "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Accordingly, he did his utmost to preserve the Union and to end what he regarded as the greatest imperfection of that Union: Negro slavery.
This view of Lincoln by no means is restricted to mythologists in the style of Carl Sandburg. Quite the contrary, scholars such as Harry Jaffa, the leading promoter of Lincoln-as-philosophical-statesman, accept this view in its entirety. Lerone Bennett does not mention Jaffa in his outstanding new book, but the entire volume massively refutes his position. As Bennett abundantly shows, Lincoln cared little for blacks and wished them to leave the United States.”
https://mises.org/library/forced-glory-abraham-lincolns-white-dream-lerone-bennett-jr
“Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe, by Thomas DiLorenzo. 07/01/2007 David Gordon
Thomas DiLorenzo calls attention to a vital fact that demolishes the popular view that one of Lincoln's primary motives for opposing secession in 1861 was his distaste for slavery. Precisely the opposite was the case.”
https://mises.org/library/lincoln-unmasked-what-youre-not-supposed-know-about-dishonest-abe-thomas-dilorenzo
American Bastille - a history of the illegal arrests and imprisonment of American citizens during the late Civil War by John A. Marshall, 1871
https://archive.org/details/americanbastille00mars
Judge H “The people do not even yet know the crimes that have been committed in the name of Liberty.” Preface, p.xii
Author “In conversation with Lord Lyons, Mr. Seward said, "My lord, l can touch a bell on my right hand, and order the arrest of a citizen of Ohio ; l can touch a bell again, and order the imprisonment of a citizen of New York ; and no power on earth, except that of the President, can release them. Can the Queen of England do so much ?” p.xiii
Judge H “Someday the history of the political imprisonments during the late Administration [LINCOLN] will be written, and what a sad chapter to be read by posterity! It makes my heart sick to think that in this land of so-called liberty there has been so much oppression. We can no longer point to the Bastiles of France—the Towers and castles of England, as"barbarous relics of a barbarous age." The American Bastile is now identified with the institutions of our country. Here the word of the informer was the law—the sound of the "little bell" the signal—and the telegraph the messenger. Citizens were arrested by thousands, and incar-cerated without warrant. Judges were torn from the bench, bruised and bleeding. Ministers of the Gospel, while performing the sacred and holy duties of their offices, were stricken down, dragged through the streets, and imprisoned. Women were incarcerated, and subjected to insult and outrage. Doctors were ruthlessly taken from the bedside of the dying patient, and immured for months without warrant, and lawyers arrested and consigned to the same cells with their clients, whose release they were endeavoring to effect. Post-offices were searched; newspapers seized and suppressed, while the editors were handcuffed and secretly hurried to prison. The writ of Habeas Corpus was a blank, and all our inheritable rights, “poor, poor, dumb mouths." p.xv
Author. The encroachments upon the personal rights of American citizens, during the Administration of President Lincoln, would not inspire one with the idea that we had much of liberty to lose, or, at least, be in a condition to transplant it into other countries, or among other peoples. Far better would it be, to inscribe on the brow of the Goddess of Liberty, over the dome of the Capitol at Washington, the ancient inscription over the entrance into the Temple of Apollo, at Delphi—"Know Thyself," than attempt to preach liberty abroad, when we do not enjoy it at home.” p.xix