[Notary Sojac]

If it's possible to have a "last word" on the Lincoln controversies here at FR, I think that this is it.

At the very least, it should put paid to those who have dared here to defend the slaveholders.

[Oratam]

Thanks for posting this.

[central_va]

Lincoln’s rule was neither “big government” nor “no government” but minimal government, with that minimum confined almost entirely to the task of removing obstacles to self-improvement and the development of ambition. “To elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from all shoulders — to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all — to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life” was “the leading object of the government.” And in the ultimate sense, the Civil War, by preserving the Union and eliminating slavery, was waged “in order that each of you may have through this free government . . . an open field and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise and intelligence; that you all may have equal privileges in the race of life, with all its desirable human aspirations.” Such a “nation is worth fighting for, to secure such an inestimable jewel.”

An example of Lincoln's policy of "“To elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from all shoulders"

Atlanta, 1864

[KC Burke]

Linc

[woweeitsme]

Great article. Thanks for posting!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Outstanding article. Thanks for posting! This offers a refreshingly new view of Lincoln and the forces that shaped him (at least I haven’t seen this view before).

[T-Bird45]

Interesting article but it wasn’t really necessary to repeat yourself.

I am not here to defend the practice of slavery. I would point out the commentary by the Italian economist does not take into account that earlier choices in the south to avoid industrialization eventually required nationalized war industries since they had no option to outsource privately as the north did. It was not necessarily a preference but the exigencies of the moment.

[Repeal The 17th]

“...those who have dared here to defend the slaveholders...”
-
Defend them from what?

[rockrr]

Excellent find Notary Sojac - it is so refreshing to see something from the Civil War era that isn’t an anti-America screed.

[AmusedBystander]

Lincoln was a rare gift to mankind.

[K-Stater]

Lincoln was way cool!

A very happy 202nd birthday, Mr. President.

[PeaRidge]

Mr. Guelzo is a prolific writer with a hardened agenda.

Essentially this is an essay that superficially refutes an Obama-Lincoln comparison, but underneath the argument misrepresents Lincoln and his presidency so that it appears legal and altruistic. The truth is that after April 1, 1861, the majority of Lincoln's actions were the exact opposite of Presidential behavior sanctioned by Constitutional law.

It should be noted that the author does not present any footnotes for his opinions, and sets up false authority for his assertions. He cannot know what Lincoln read or thought. Instead, he must rely on opinions and vague quotes from second and third hand sources. That is not scholarly work.

It should be kept in mind precisely who Lincoln was. He was essentially an orator that presented well polished equivocations and very little specific policy by which he stood and on which he acted.

For example, the author makes this statement which includes an undocumented Lincoln quote:

“And in the ultimate sense, the Civil War, by preserving the Union and eliminating slavery, was waged ‘in order that each of you may have through this free government . . . an open field and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise and intelligence; that you all may have equal privileges in the race of life, with all its desirable human aspirations.’ Such a “nation is worth fighting for, to secure such an inestimable jewel.”

Sounds like Lincoln was dedicated to that. But looking back a few years, he said these things:

“Cast into life where slavery was already (existing, I do not know) how it could be at once eradicated, without producing a greater evil, even to the cause of human liberty itself.” (1852 eulogy of Henry Clay)

Equivocation.

Then in 1854 in a speech in Peoria, Lincoln said he looked forward to a future of a white American northwest. He called for the exclusion of slavery from the territories, but not for the commonly presumed reasons. Instead he stated in that speech that his reason was to preserve those territories as land for free whites to move to. Specifically Lincoln said,

“The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories. We want them for the homes of free white people. This they cannot be, to any considerable extent, if slavery shall be planted with them.”

Equivocation.

After the Dred Scott decision, he said:

“We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall awake to the reality instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty is the work now before all those who would prevent that consummation. This is what we have to do.”

Mr. Lincoln varied his message.

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favour of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races”.

Those words came from the mouth of Abraham Lincoln in his debate with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858.

Equivocation.

Then in March-April of 1861 he supported an amendment to the Constitution, the Corwin amendment that would legalize slavery in any state choosing to be involved in it.

This amendment was passed by both the House and Senate and said:

"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any state, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said state."

"I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable," would be Lincoln's response to this amendments passage, as said in his first inaugural address, March 4, 1861.

Equivocation.

Then in 1862 he said:

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

Equivocation.

His speeches and quotes are so widely varied, one could conclude anything one wants to. However, the one issue on which he did not equivocate was that he would preserve the revenue stream described in his first inauguration speech.

Preservation of the tariff revenue stream meant coercion and subjugation of the Southern states.

He did so, beginning with the invasion of Charleston and Pensacola in April of 1861.

[Para-Ord.45]

bm

[Moonman62]

Substitute “illegal alien” for slave and you have an up to date news story.

[Yardstick]

*bump*

The more I learn about Lincoln, the more I like him.

[fortheDeclaration]

Thank you for posting!

[TheBigIf]

Great article!

It is amazing how similiar this battle between Lincoln and the democrats still is today.

The Confederate democrats played the same class warfare games then that the Progressive democrats do today.

Of course the Progressive democrat Wilson mentioned in the article was the first democrat after the Civil war elected President and was supported by the Confederate socialists known as the ‘People’s party’. Wislon also brought on many Confederate democrats into his administration and heavily supported the KKK.

The Confederate democrats were always very anti-capitalism and anti-Wall Street just as the Progressive democrats still are today.

The Progressive democrats stil also practise ‘Slavery economics’ as well just as their predeccesors the Confederate democrats did.

[lentulusgracchus]

If it's possible to have a "last word" on the Lincoln controversies here at FR, I think that this is it.

Not at all. This is just another Ivy League screed defending the Northeast's champion and benefactor, Lincoln, on all points against all comers -- another Marble Man snowjob.

Guelzo is a triple-dipped Ivy Leaguer (Harvard, Penn, and Princeton) who holds a chair at Gettysburg College endowed in honor of Henry Luce III and a Lincoln Society regular, and an honoree of the Abraham Lincoln Institute (for Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, 1999).

He most assuredly has a culturally-bound and affiliation-bound point of view about Lincolniana.

[Article] His embrace of classical-liberal economics was the force that moved all his achievements.....

And yet so many of Lincoln's associates, such as Ben Butler, were engaged not in "Randite" classical-liberal economics, but in access capitalism and crony capitalism, which was the actual model of the Gilded Age.

[EternalVigilance]

A great essay.

[EternalVigilance]

The Italian historian Raimondo Luraghi once remarked that, unlike the Lincoln administration, the “Confederate rulers did not want a private capitalist industry” and “did not want to see a powerful industrial bourgeoisie rising in the Confederacy.” So while the Union government contracted out its wartime needs to the private sector, the Confederate government set up government-owned supply facilities “investing millions of dollars, arming and supplying one of the largest armies in the world — and all this as national property or under national control, in a kind of quasi-socialist management.” Predictably, the Confederacy’s nationalized industries did a bad job of supplying and feeding the rebel armies, so among the reasons Luraghi listed for the Confederacy’s downfall was its choice of “the way of ‘state socialism,’ a solution that is as far from capitalism as the earth is from the moon.”?

Now there's a reality that'll make a few folks choke.