DiLorenzo criticizes Lincoln for the suspension of habeas corpus, violations of the First Amendment, war crimes committed by generals in the American Civil War, and the expansion of government power. He argues that Lincoln's views on race exhibited forms of bigotry that are commonly overlooked today, such as belief in white racial superiority, against miscegenation, and even against black men being jurors. He says that Lincoln instigated the American Civil War not over slavery but rather to centralize power and to enforce the strongly protectionistMorrill Tariff; similarly, he criticizes Lincoln for his strong support of Henry Clay's American System economic plan. DiLorenzo regards Lincoln as the political and ideological heir of Alexander Hamilton, and contends that Lincoln achieved by the use of armed force the centralized state which Hamilton failed to create in the early years of the United States.
DiLorenzo's negative view of Lincoln is explicitly derived from his anarcho-capitalist views. He considers Lincoln to have opened the way to later instances of government involvement in the American economy, for example Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, of which DiLorenzo strongly disapproves. DiLorenzo objects to historians who described Lincoln as having carried out "a capitalist revolution", since in DiLorenzo's view protectionist policies such as Lincoln strongly advocated and implemented "are not true Capitalism." In DiLorenzo's explicitly expressed view, only free trade policies are truly capitalist–a distinction not shared by most economists and political scientists. DiLorenzo declares protectionism and mercantilism to be one the same, using the two as interchangeable and frequently talking of "Lincoln's Mercantilist policies". In general, academics do not regard protectionism and mercantilism as being identical, at most regarding the two as having some common features.
In the foreword to DiLorenzo's book, Walter E. Williams, a professor of economics at George Mason University, says that "Abraham Lincoln's direct statements indicated his support for slavery," and adds that he "defended slave owners' right to own their property" by supporting the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.[1]
Reception
Herman Belz reviewed DiLorenzo's book together with Charles Adams's When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, and claimed that it quoted Lincoln out of context, saying:[2]
with respect to the books under review, there is a temptation for writers oblivious to the requirements of historical scholarship to treat Lincoln's speeches and writings as a polemical grab bag from which to select materials, abstracted from their historical context, that can be used to present Lincoln in an unfavorable light. Thomas J. DiLorenzo and Charles Adams, writing from the point of view that in academic economics is labeled anarcho-capitalistlibertarianism, scavenge the documentary record in an attempt to show Lincoln as a revolutionary centralizer who used national sovereignty to establish corporate-mercantilist hegemony at the expense of genuine economic liberty.
He says they have a "simple-minded understanding of the relationship between politics and economics, between moral ends and productive entrepreneurial activity."[2] He also noted that "these not very scholarly books" were of most interest for "their reflection of recent trends in Civil War historiography. Two developments stand out. The first is radicalization of the interrelated issues of slavery, civil rights, and race relations. The second development is a revival of interest in secession as a solution to the problem of government centralization."[2]
Reviewing for The Independent Review, Richard M. Gamble noted that DiLorenzo's book "manages to raise fresh and morally probing questions" and that it "exposes Lincoln's embarrassing views on race, his ambition for economic nationalism, his rewriting of the history of the founding of the nation, his cavalier violation of constitutional limits on the presidency, and his willingness to wage a barbaric total war to achieve his ends". But, Gamble notes that The Real Lincoln "is seriously compromised by careless errors of fact, misuse of sources, and faulty documentation," which taken all together "constitute a near-fatal threat to DiLorenzo's credibility as a historian."[3]
Gamble listed numerous fallacies of the book as follows:[3] "Thomas Jefferson was not among the framers of the Constitution (pp.69–70); Lincoln advised sending freed slaves to Liberia in a speech in 1854, not "during the war" (pp.16–17); Lincoln was not a member of the Illinois state legislature in 1857 (p.18); the commerce clause was not an "amendment,"; Thaddeus Stevens was a Pennsylvania representative, not a senator (p.140); and Fort Sumter was not a customs house (p.242)." Additionally: "In chapter 3, DiLorenzo claims that in a letter to Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln "admitted that the original [Emancipation] proclamation had no legal justification, except as a war measure" (p.37). His source, however, is the recollections of a conversation (not a letter) that portrait artist Francis Bicknell Carpenter (not Chase) had with Lincoln, and at no point do these recollections sustain DiLorenzo's summary of them. Moreover, in the reference for this section, DiLorenzo misidentifies the title of his source as Paul Angle's The American Reader, when in fact the jumbled material comes from Angle's The Lincoln Reader." He also notes that DiLorenzo claims, for example, "that in the four years between 1860 and 1864, population in the thirteen largest Northern cities rose by 70 percent" (p.225)." Gamble checks the source and finds it says that total rate of growth took place over 15 years.[3]
Historian Brian Dirck said that few Civil War scholars take DiLorenzo seriously, pointing to his "narrow political agenda and faulty research".[4]
Ken Masugi of the Claremont Institute wrote in National Review that "DiLorenzo frequently distorts the meaning of the primary sources he cites, Lincoln most of all."[5] Masugi provides the following example:[5]
Consider this inflammatory assertion: "Eliminating every last black person from American soil, Lincoln proclaimed, would be 'a glorious consummation.'" Compare the nuances and qualifications in what Lincoln actually said: "If as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means, succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery; and, at the same time, in restoring a captive people to their long-lost father-land, with bright prospects for the future; and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation." One need not be a Lincoln admirer to recognize that DiLorenzo is making an unfair characterization. DiLorenzo actually gets so overwrought that at one point he attributes to Lincoln racist views Lincoln was attacking.
Masugi further asserts that DiLorenzo failed to recognize "a disunited America might have become prey for the designs of European imperial powers, which would have put an end to the experiment in self-government."[5]
DiLorenzo responded saying that Masugi was selective in his presentation about Lincoln and "relies entirely on a few of Lincoln's prettier speeches, ignoring his less attractive ones as well as his actual behavior." He concluded that Lincoln used his considerable rhetorical skills to camouflage his true intentions and mask his behavior.[6]
DiLorenzo enumerates various other 19th Century nations which abolished slavery without resorting to civil war– which is true. He points out that a small percentage of the money and resources spent on the Civil War would have sufficed to compensate all slave owners and provide land to all released slaves– and the numbers certainly back him up. But DiLorenzo also praises and idealizes the pre-1861 structure of the United States, as a confederation of virtually independent entities– each of which had a recognized right of secession of which it could make use, or threaten to use, at any time. What DiLorenzo persistently refuses to do is to link up these two issues - which were in reality very tightly bound up with each other. As even the most superficial student of pre-1861 American politics knows, there was no greater taboo than suggesting that the Federal government touch slavery in the South in any way or manner whatsoever. There was no way the South would have allowed any President or Congress to spend a single tax-payers' Dollar for compensating slave-owners. For much less than that they several times threatened to secede, for much less than that they finally did secede. In short - the reason why the US, alone of all slave-holding nations, needed to go through a terrible civil war in order to end slavery is that the system of entrenched States' Rights made it impossible to do it any other way. For the slaves to be free, Lincoln had to smash States' Rights by main force - there was no other way. True, in doing that Lincoln had various other agendas beside slavery, agendas which were more important to him than slavery; there can hardly be any debate on that, since Lincoln himself said so repeatedly at the time itself. Still, ultimately it was Lincoln who liberated the slaves. It was done in a terribly painful way, because the South had firmly blocked the less painful ways.
Writing in 2013 about DiLorenzo's book and the work of other "Lincoln haters", Rich Lowry said:[8]
The anti-Lincolnites hate that the North instituted a progressive income tax; they never bother to complain that the Confederacy did the same. They hate that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus; they never note that Jefferson Davis did, too. They hate that the North resorted to a draft; they don't care that the Confederacy also had one. They hate that Lincoln fought a war against his countrymen; it evidently never occurs to them that Jefferson Davis shot back (let alone that he fired the first shot).
↑ Whitefield, Ken. "Is DiLorenzo's Lincoln the Real Lincoln?". In Renan, Martha (ed.). The Continuing Fascination and Continuing Controversy of the Civil War.
Dirck, Brian (2009). "Father Abraham: Lincoln's Relentless Struggle to End Slavery, and: Act of Justice: Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the Law of War, and: Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment (review)". Civil War History. 55 (3): 382–385. doi:10.1353/cwh.0.0090. S2CID143986160.
Krannawitter, Thomas L. "Dishonest About Abe". January 31, 2009. Claremont Institute. Archived from the original on May 17, 2008. A review of The Real Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the United States through the American Civil War, defending the nation as a constitutional union, defeating the insurgent Confederacy, playing a major role in the abolition of slavery, expanding the power of the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.
The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. The Proclamation had the effect of changing the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free. As soon as slaves escaped the control of their enslavers, either by fleeing to Union lines or through the advance of federal troops, they were permanently free. In addition, the Proclamation allowed for former slaves to "be received into the armed service of the United States". The Emancipation Proclamation played a significant part in the end of slavery in the United States.
John Taylor, usually called John Taylor of Caroline, was a politician and writer. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates and in the United States Senate. He wrote several books on politics and agriculture. He was a Jeffersonian Republican and his works provided inspiration to the later states' rights and libertarian movements. Sheldon and Hill (2008) locate Taylor at the intersection of republicanism and classical liberalism. They see his position as a "combination of a concern with Lockean natural rights, freedom, and limited government along with a classical interest in strong citizen participation in rule to prevent concentrated power and wealth, political corruption, and financial manipulation."
A consensus of historians who address the origins of the American Civil War agree that the preservation of the institution of slavery was the principal aim of the eleven Southern states that declared their secession from the United States and united to form the Confederate States of America. However, while historians in the 21st century agree on the centrality of slavery in the conflict, they disagree sharply on which aspects of this conflict were most important, and on the North's reasons for refusing to allow the Southern states to secede. Proponents of the pseudo-historical Lost Cause ideology have denied that slavery was the principal cause of the secession, a view that has been disproven by the overwhelming historical evidence against it, notably the seceding states' own secession documents.
Neo-Confederates are groups and individuals who portray the Confederate States of America and its actions during the American Civil War in a positive light. The League of the South, the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other neo-Confederate organizations continue to defend the secession of the former Confederate States.
Thomas James DiLorenzo is an author and former university economics professor who is the President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He has written books denouncing President Abraham Lincoln.
Harry Victor Jaffa was an American political philosopher, historian, columnist, and professor. He was a professor emeritus at Claremont McKenna College, Claremont Graduate University, and was a distinguished fellow of the Claremont Institute. Robert P. Kraynak says his "life work was to develop an American application of Leo Strauss's revival of natural-right philosophy against the relativism and nihilism of our times".
Abraham Lincoln's position on slavery in the United States is one of the most discussed aspects of his life. Lincoln frequently expressed his moral opposition to slavery in public and private. "I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong," he stated. "I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel." However, the question of what to do about it and how to end it, given that it was so firmly embedded in the nation's constitutional framework and in the economy of much of the country, even though concentrated in only the Southern United States, was complex and politically challenging. In addition, there was the unanswered question, which Lincoln had to deal with, of what would become of the four million slaves if liberated: how they would earn a living in a society that had almost always rejected them or looked down on their very presence.
Hamilton Rowan Gamble was an American jurist and politician who served as the Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court at the time of the Dred Scott case in 1852. Although his colleagues voted to overturn the 28-year precedent in Missouri of "once free always free," Gamble wrote a dissenting opinion. During the American Civil War, he was appointed as the Governor of Missouri by a Constitutional Convention after Union forces captured the state capital at Jefferson City and deposed the elected governor, Claiborne Jackson.
The Slave Power, or Slavocracy, referred to the perceived political power held by American slaveowners in the federal government of the United States during the Antebellum period. Antislavery campaigners charged that this small group of wealthy slaveholders had seized political control of their states and were trying to take over the federal government illegitimately to expand and protect slavery. The claim was later used by the Republican Party that formed in 1854–55 to oppose the expansion of slavery.
Charles Smith Olden was an American merchant, banker, and politician who served as the 19th governor of New Jersey from 1860 to 1863 during the first part of the American Civil War. As Governor, Olden supported President Abraham Lincoln and the national war effort but favored union and reconciliation with the South above all else; before the war, he argued slavery was properly understood as the sole regulatory province of the states, and he later opposed Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream (2000) is a book written by Lerone Bennett Jr., an African-American scholar and historian, who served as the executive editor of Ebony for decades. It criticizes United States President Abraham Lincoln and claims that his reputation as the "Great Emancipator" during the American Civil War is undeserved.
South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union in December 1860, and was one of the founding member states of the Confederacy in February 1861. The bombardment of the beleaguered U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, is generally recognized as the first military engagement of the war. The retaking of Charleston in February 1865, and raising the flag again at Fort Sumter, was used for the Union symbol of victory.
The presidency of Abraham Lincoln began on March 4, 1861, when Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th president of the United States, and ended upon his assassination and death on April 15, 1865, 42 days into his second term. Lincoln was the first member of the recently established Republican Party elected to the presidency. Lincoln successfully presided over the Union victory in the American Civil War, which dominated his presidency and resulted in the end of slavery.
James Oakes is an American historian, and is a Distinguished Professor of History and Graduate School Humanities Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York where he teaches courses on the American Civil War and Reconstruction, Slavery, the Old South, Abolitionism, and U.S. and World History. He taught previously at Princeton University and Northwestern University.
The Unconditional Union Party was a loosely organized political entity during the American Civil War and the early days of Reconstruction. First established in 1861 in Missouri, where secession talk was strong, the party fully supported the preservation of the Union at all costs. Unlike the similarly named Unionist Party, which operated throughout the North, the Unconditional Unionist Party only operated in the border states. Members included Southern Democrats who were loyal to the Union as well as elements of the old Whig Party and other factions opposed to the separate Southern Confederacy. The party was dissolved in 1866.
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Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a biographical action horror mashup novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, released on March 2, 2010, through New York–based publishing company Grand Central Publishing.
The Frémont Emancipation was part of a military proclamation issued by Major General John C. Frémont (1813–1890) on August 30, 1861, in St. Louis, Missouri during the early months of the American Civil War. The proclamation placed the state of Missouri under martial law and decreed that all property of those bearing arms in rebellion would be confiscated, including slaves, and that confiscated slaves would subsequently be declared free. It also imposed capital punishment for those in rebellion against the federal government.
This article documents the political career of Abraham Lincoln from the end of his term in the United States House of Representatives in March 1849 to the beginning of his first term as President of the United States in March 1861.
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