Free Republic

Sen. Tim Kaine's Catholic bishop in Richmond, Va., has an answer for the Democratic vice presidential pick's prediction that the Vatican will change its opposition to same sex marriage: Never. In a statement provided to Secrets, Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo said, "Marriage is the only institution uniting one man and one woman with each other and with any child who comes from their union. Redefining marriage furthers no one's rights." Speaking Saturday to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's leading LGBT lobbying group, Kaine said he believes the church will change its position on gay marriage. "I think it's going...

EDITORIAL Last week, Bishop Francis DiLorenzo, the Virginia bishop for Hillary Clinton’s pro-abortion Catholic running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, put out a press release announcing his decision not to enforce Canon 915, saying that for “Catholics in public office,” “worthiness to receive the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist” is a matter for each person “to decide through an upright and informed conscience.” In other words, Bishop DiLorenzo has gone out of his way to make clear that, the ongoing scandal of Kaine’s weekly public reception of Holy Communion while supporting pre-born child killing on the campaign trail will continue indefinitely...

Did anyone here see tonight's Glenn Beck TV show segment with the author (Lehrman?) of Lincoln at Peoria?

Ask yourself this question: was the housing price bubble, which has burst, caused by (a) a Fed policy of too much liquidity, which caused artificially low interest rates, which in turn caused a great deal of malinvestment, or (b) a Fed policy of too little liquidity which caused high interest rates and a credit-starved economy? If you chose answer b, congratulations, you may have a future as a celebrated author, historian, and Wall Street Journal commentator. Answer b is a theme of a truly ridiculous article by John Steele Gordon in the October 10 issue of the Wall Street Journal...

Our recent coverage of the scandal at Richmond Catholic Charities ( CCR) tells a sordid tale of tragedy, secrecy, and sub­terfuge. But this incident, sorrowful as it is, also reveals a deeper and more per­vasive problem that has plagued the Church in America for decades. That problem is the power of rogue bureaucra­cies that have hijacked the work of the Church and secularized it. In many cas­es, like that in Richmond, they have to­tally corrupted it. Sometimes we have to wonder if the chanceries have learned anything from the clerical abuse scandals and cover- ups that have so damaged the...

In the ongoing debate and discourse over the War to Prevent Southern Independence quite a few libertarians will admit that Lincoln was a consummate liar and conniver, a dictator, tyrant, protectionist, corporate tool, murderer of civilians, and a white supremacist to boot. But they refuse to take a stand on the war because, you see, the Confederate government was not a libertarian Nirvana; it was not perfect. Therefore, they say, one cannot conclude that the war was just or unjust: A pox on both their houses! Or worse yet, they condemn the Lincoln dictatorship but praise his "leadership" in...

DiLorenzo's Lincoln --- a rebuttal Historical scholarship is often a controversial field, so it is no surprise that occasionally we find some argument or dissension over a book or article which appears. This web page is devoted to exposing what its publisher and contributors think are a number of grievous errors in Thomas DiLorenzo's recent book on Abraham Lincoln (The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War; Prima Publishing [an imprint of Random House], 2002).Several people helped with the preparation of this site, and the publisher would like to especially thank Prof. Richard...

DILORENZO IS ESSENTIALLY CORRECT that the tariff supplied ninety percent of federal revenue before the Civil War. For the thirty years from 1831 to 1860 it was eighty-four percent, but for the 1850s as a decade it was indeed ninety percent. But the idea that the South paid about seventy-five percent of tariff revenues is totally absurd. DiLorenzo bases this on pages 26-27 of Charles Adams, When in the Course of Human Events, but Adams comes up with these figures out of thin air, and worse, appears to be measuring the South's share of exports, and then transposing that percentage...

The political left in America has apparently decided that American history must be rewritten so that it can be used in the political campaign for reparations for slavery. Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., of Chicago inserted language in a Department of Interior appropriations bill for 2000 that instructed the National Park Service to propagandize about slavery as the sole cause of the war at all Civil War park sites. The Marxist historian Eric Foner has joined forces with Jackson and will assist the National Park Service in its efforts at rewriting history so that it better serves the political agenda of...

Martin Scorcese’s new movie, "The Gangs of New York," is remarkable in that it accurately portrays the New York City working class’s violent opposition to the Lincoln administration during the War for Southern Independence. At one point in the movie, as the caskets of dead New Yorkers are piled up on the docks, a large crowd chants, "New York should secede!" "New York should secede!" In another scene Irish immigrants who have been in the U.S. for only a few days are told to sign one piece of paper that grants them citizenship and another one that enrolls them in...

America’s cultural elite has apparently decided that a new round of demonization of Southerners is in order and is busy eradicating all semblances of Southern heritage, especially the Confederate battle flag, from any and all public places. Now that there are no problems at all with the black family structure in the inner cities, nor with crime or poverty or education there, the NAACP is spending resources battling anyone who wants to fly a Confederate flag anywhere at any time. It is all reminiscent of how the Soviets and other communist regimes rewrote their own history as a means of...

As you may know, the Claremonsters launched their latest and probably most widespread attack on Thomas DiLorenzo's "The Real Lincoln" this week with an article in National Review by Ken Masugi. The article follows the same line taken by the two previous Claremonsters tasked with smearing DiLorenzo by the Abratollah Jaffa - Tom Krannawitter and Richard Ferrier. Rather than appearing on the Claremont or Declaration Foundation websites like the previous attacks, this one made it into a more mainstream conservative publication. I read the review today in the new issue of NR and immediately experienced a sense of disgust that...

  When Abraham Lincoln first entered politics in 1832 he announced to Illinois voters that "My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am in favor of a national bank . . . in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff." These three things – central banking, protectionism, and what we today call corporate welfare (for the railroad and road-building industries) are what Lincoln would devote the next twenty-eight years to achieving, working tirelessly in the political trenches of the Whig and Republican parties. In doing so he became a master politician,...

In a recent review of my book, The Real Lincoln, for an economic history website (EH.Net) Gerald Gunderson of Trinity College in Connecticut creates a straw-man and then attacks it by misstating what I say about the profitability of slavery in the mid nineteenth century. He claims that I "dismiss" slavery "as an inefficient institution, lacking incentives for growth such that it probably would have disappeared if left alone." I do not say this at all, however. I basically concur with Jeffrey Hummel’s analysis in his book, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men, that antebellum slavery was propped up by such...

As has been their tradition for decades now, neocons who are in favor of waging total war against somebody (this time it’s Iraq) have been invoking the sainted Lincoln ("Father Abraham," as the war enthusiasts at the Claremont Institute call him) as their role model. After all, there must be some kind of ideological cover for mass murder (as all wars are), and that is the role of the Lincoln Myth.As Joseph Stromberg recently noted ("Bring on the Honors List!", LRC, Aug. 28), George Will has written in the Washington Post that President Bush should look to Lincoln’s war tactics...

The notion that Lincoln’s Union preceded the states is a tall tale. Author Tom DiLorenzo, in his celebrated new book, The Real Lincoln, calls it Lincoln’s spectacular lie, as so named by Emory University philosopher, Donald Livingston. The War Between the States was fought, in Lincoln’s mind, to preserve the sanctity of centralization powered by a strong and unchecked federal government. Only through such an established order could Lincoln do his Whig friends the honor of advancing The American System, a mercantilist arrangement that spawned corporate welfare, a monetary monopoly for the Feds, and a protectionist tariff approach that stymied...

One thing that can never be admitted in polite academic company is the notion that economics had anything to do with the American War between the States. This may seem strange, since wars throughout all of economic history have had important economic components, but it is true nevertheless. For example Richard Ferrier, a critic of my book, The Real Lincoln, recently insisted in a WorldNetDaily interview that in the Lincoln-Douglas debates “there is not a word about [Lincoln’s] economic agenda. Not a word!’ Absolutely correct. There are many words, not just one. Such as during the July 17, 1858, debate...

<p>CONTENT=""> dd   Was Lincoln a Tyrant? by Thomas J. DiLorenzoIn a recent WorldNetDaily article, “Examining ‘Evidence’ of Lincoln’s Tyranny (April 23),” David Quackenbush accuses me of misreading several statements by the prominent historians Roy Basler and Mark Neely in my book, The Real Lincoln:  A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War.   With regard to Basler, I quote him in Abraham Lincoln:  His Speeches and Writings, as suggesting that on the issue of slavery, post 1854, Lincoln’s  “words lacked effectiveness.”  Quackenbush says he was not referring to Lincoln’s comments on slavery here, but other...

Debate continues over 'The Real Lincoln' Richard Ferrier counters critic of Abe in Metcalf interview Posted: April 28, 20021:00 a.m. Eastern Editor's Note: WorldNetDaily talk-radio host Geoff Metcalf recently interviewed Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo, author of "The Real Lincoln." In his book, as in the interview published April 14, DiLorenzo claims the 16th president was far more concerned with economic centralization than the abolishment of slavery. The interview elicited strong responses from readers, about half of whom disagreed with the author's assertions. Among them was Dr. Richard Ferrier, president of the Declaration Foundation. According to Ferrier and scholars at the foundation,...

Tell me What I Say Department The Lord condones Retaliation and Divorce! "Hang all the Law and the Prophets." -- Jesus of Nazareth. We are forever in debt to Dr. diLorenzo. In his efforts to show that Lincoln was actually a not-so-crypto commie, he has provided us with a new exegetical technique which sheds light on, well, on just about everything! The left wing of the Supreme Court will soon be using diLorenzian interpretation to show that the Constitution mandates ex post facto law when it states, "Ex post facto law shall be passed." (It's in there, believe us: Article...