POLITICALLY CORRECT HISTORY - LINCOLN MYTH DEBUNKED

LewRockwell.com ^ | January 23, 2003 | Thomas J. DiLorenzo, PHD

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Politically Correct History by Thomas J. DiLorenzo 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 the far left. Congressman Jackson has candidly described this whole effort as "a down payment on reparations." (Foner ought to be quite familiar with the "art" of rewriting politically-correct history. He was the chairman of the committee at Columbia University that awarded the "prestigious" Bancroft Prize in history to Emory University’s Michael A. Bellesiles, author of the anti-Second Amendment book, "Arming America," that turned out to be fraudulent. Bellesiles was forced to resign from Emory and his publisher has ceased publishing the book.) In order to accommodate the political agenda of the far left, the National Park Service will be required in effect to teach visitors to the national parks that Abraham Lincoln was a liar. Neither Lincoln nor the US Congress at the time ever said that slavery was a cause – let alone the sole cause – of their invasion of the Southern states in 1861. Both Lincoln and the Congress made it perfectly clear to the whole world that they would do all they could to protect Southern slavery as long as the secession movement could be defeated. On March 2, 1861, the U.S. Senate passed a proposed Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution (which passed the House of Representatives on February 28) that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with slavery in the Southern states. (See U.S. House of Representatives, 106th Congress, 2nd Session, The Constitution of the United States of America: Unratified Amendments, Document No. 106-214, presented by Congressman Henry Hyde (Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office, January 31, 2000). The proposed amendment read as follows: ARTICLE THIRTEEN 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. Two days later, in his First Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln promised to support the amendment even though he believed that the Constitution already prohibited the federal government from interfering with Southern slavery. As he stated: I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution . . . has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose, not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable (emphasis added). This of course was consistent with one of the opening statements of the First Inaugural, where Lincoln quoted himself as saying: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." That’s what Lincoln said his invasion of the Southern states was not about. In an August 22, 1862, letter to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley he explained to the world what the war was about: My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union. Of course, many Americans at the time, North and South, believed that a military invasion of the Southern states would destroy the union by destroying its voluntary nature. To Lincoln, "saving the Union" meant destroying the secession movement and with it the Jeffersonian political tradition of states’ rights as a check on the tyrannical proclivities of the central government. His war might have "saved" the union geographically, but it destroyed it philosophically as the country became a consolidated empire as opposed to a constitutional republic of sovereign states. On July 22, 1861, the US Congress issued a "Joint Resolution on the War" that echoed Lincoln’s reasons for the invasion of the Southern states: Resolved: . . . That this war is not being prosecuted upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and all laws made in pursuance thereof and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality and rights of the several states unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease. By "the established institutions of those states" the Congress was referring to slavery. As with Lincoln, destroying the secession movement took precedence over doing anything about slavery. On March 2, 1861 – the same day the "first Thirteenth Amendment" passed the U.S. Senate – another constitutional amendment was proposed that would have outlawed secession (See H. Newcomb Morse, "The Foundations and Meaning of Secession," Stetson Law Review, vol. 15, 1986, pp. 419–36). This is very telling, for it proves that Congress believed that secession was in fact constitutional under the Tenth Amendment. It would not have proposed an amendment outlawing secession if the Constitution already prohibited it. Nor would the Republican Party, which enjoyed a political monopoly after the war, have insisted that the Southern states rewrite their state constitutions to outlaw secession as a condition of being readmitted to the Union. If secession was really unconstitutional there would have been no need to do so. These facts will never be presented by the National Park Service or by the Lincoln cultists at the Claremont Institute, the Declaration Foundation, and elsewhere. This latter group consists of people who have spent their careers spreading lies about Lincoln and his war in order to support the political agenda of the Republican Party. They are not about to let the truth stand in their way and are hard at work producing "educational" materials that are filled with false but politically correct history. For a very different discussion of Lincoln and his legacy that is based on fact rather than fantasy, attend the LewRockwell.com "Lincoln Reconsidered" conference at the John Marshall Hotel in Richmond, Virginia on March 22. January 23, 2003 Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is the author of the LRC #1 bestseller, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (Forum/Random House, 2002) and professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland. Copyright © 2003 LewRockwell.com Thomas DiLorenzo Archives Really Learn About the Real Lincoln Now there is a study guide and video to accompany Professor DiLorenzo's great work, for homeschoolers and indeed anyone interested in real American history. http://www.fvp.info/reallincolnlr/

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[WhiskeyPapa]

You can see this in how little attention is given to tariffs -after- the start of hostilites.

Your continual fibbing amazes me, Walt. Newspaper reports came in constantly after the first year of Morrill about its impact on trade.

Peace feelers between the two governments throughout the ACW apparently have no discussion regarding tariffs whatsoever as a condition of reunion.

You are the one lying about these events and throwing up blue smoke and mirrors to hid the fact that your position is complete nonsense.

Walt

[GOPcapitalist]

The idea we were discussing was the breaking of the Union. The idea was to restore the Union. There seems to be virtually no discussion of the tariff when restoration of the national authority throughout the country is mentioned.

The tariff was in place and with restoration of the union came enforcement of that same tariff. What else is there to say, Walt?

Your position is complete nonsense. It's not supported in the record.

It is substantiated fact that you would not know the true record if it were glued to your forehead. It is therefore possible to conclude that you lack the credentials to evaluate that record's support of another's position as evaluation, by its nature, first requires recognition of its subject. It is therefore logical to conclude that you lack the credentials to make any sort of statement resembling or implying that which you just asserted above.

And your response I quote above can only be seen as an attempt not at honest discussion, but Nazi/Soviet style disinformation.

You have yet to even acknowledge my responses or the facts contained within them, Walt. In order to pass judgment of their status and factual validity, you must first know them to exist and acknowledge that existence by addressing them. You do not do any of these things. It is therefore logical to conclude that you lack the credentials to pass any sort of judgment on them as you do above. Try again.

[Non-Sequitur]

Conduct his unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus without having to ignore court rulings telling him that doing so was unconstitutional.

So according to you arresting a Supreme Court justice was less risky than ignoring him? So why do you think President Lincoln didn't do it? Or rather why didn't Lincoln get mad with Lamont when the warrant wasn't served? According to you that left Lincoln with the less desirable course of ignoring Taney instead of throwing his butt in the slammer.

[GOPcapitalist]

Peace feelers between the two governments throughout the ACW apparently have no discussion regarding tariffs whatsoever as a condition of reunion.

Sorry Walt, but the act of reunion was not the goal of the south. The Lincoln claimed it as his goal. That claim was unilateral and, for all practical purposes, was The Lincoln's only area upon which he would have anything but violent, bloody warfare. It is therefore absurd to conclude that, by not sharing in that goal of submitting to The Lincoln's unilaterally proclaimed condition for peace, the south had no interest in repealing the tariff.

[GOPcapitalist]

A split is a failure, of course. It's not baseball. A tie doesn't go to the runner in voting.

It does in the U.S. Senate though if the president's party is the one batting! When a senate vote results in the tie, the Vice President casts the deciding vote. Lincoln, the guy pushing the tariff, was president and had a VP that shared his views.

There were a number of protectionists in the north, in any case. There were not enough votes to carry the Morrill tariff if southerners had kept their seats.

As I have just show, that is a fib. You seem to indulge in them habitually. Why is that?

[WhiskeyPapa]

Peace feelers between the two governments throughout the ACW apparently have no discussion regarding tariffs whatsoever as a condition of reunion.

Sorry Walt, but the act of reunion was not the goal of the south.

And yet they agreed to be united. Why was that?

Walt

[GOPcapitalist]

And yet they agreed to be united. Why was that?

Cause the guy asking for their "agreement" had a sword held to their necks.

[GOPcapitalist]

So according to you arresting a Supreme Court justice was less risky than ignoring him?

Not necessarily, and I did not say that. I did say that, in the mind of The Lincoln, it is likely that he thought at least for a brief period that it would be less risky. He apparently changed his mind as we all know he eventually responded by ignoring the ruling.

So why do you think President Lincoln didn't do it?

Personally, I think he realized that the political backlash would be worse than simply ignoring Taney's ruling and, being a politically skilled individual, made a calculation to minimize the reaction of his detractors - that meant ignoring the decision.

[GOPcapitalist]

You are slightly more credible than Stand Watie.

Which by comparison, Walt, would make you slightly more credible than Bill Clinton, though slightly less than Jesse Jackson. Considering your own political affiliations and beliefs, I would say that you seem to be in the company of your peers.

[WhiskeyPapa]

And yet they agreed to be united. Why was that?

Cause the guy asking for their "agreement" had a sword held to their necks.

You're squirming around like a rat in a trap.

A lot of things happened before the rebels were willing to resume their allegiance to the lawful government.

And many peace feelers were made. But the discussion always came round to a discussion of slavery.

Tariffs were not an issue.

Walt

[Non-Sequitur]

It's a matter of historical guess as to why, but mine would be that somebody realized that arresting Taney would be over the line.

Why should you stop speculating now? If you think that someone realized the arrest was over the line then who was it? According to you only President Lincoln and Lamon were in on it. And according to Lamon he was the one who decided not to serve the warrant. If there was a third person giving advice then who was it and why didn't Lamon mention them?

He apparently changed his mind as we all know he eventually responded by ignoring the ruling.

Not according to Lamon. But there are other reasons why I think his tale is suspect. One thing that I think we could agree with is that ordering the arrest of a Supreme Court justice was a stupid idea and President Lincoln was not a stupid man. That in and of itself is the strongest reason why the whole story of the Taney arrest is suspect. Lincoln's actions of proceeding in spite of the Taney ruling was far more prudent than arresting the judge. Why would that be Lincoln's second choice? Arrest him and you have a martyr for the rebels. Ignore him and you have a non-entity. It wouldn't have taken Lincoln two tries to come to that conclusion. After all this is the man that so many southron supporters claim tricked Davis into firing on Sumter. I would imagine you have to be pretty smart to do that. </sarcasm>

[GOPcapitalist]

You're squirming around like a rat in a trap.

Much to the contrary, Walt. I'm pointing out the idiocy of your arguments. Finding yourself unable to recover, you turn to calling names an projecting your own situation onto others.

Like it or not, the south went back into the union at gunpoint. The terms of reentry were settled in a similar fashion.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Like it or not, the south went back into the union at gunpoint. The terms of reentry were settled in a similar fashion.

It never should have come to a fight at all. Shoot at guys from Maine or Michigan over slavery? OR tariffs? It was nuts. But the madness that drove it was down south.

I am going to say this again:

In all the movement towards re-union, there was no mention of adjustments of the tariff as a reason for which the south would agree to acknowledge the primacy of the federal government. As your Mr. Hunter said:

Senator Hunter of VA. During the Negro Soldier Bill debate on March 7, 1865, the SOUTHERN HISTORICAL SOCIETY PAPERS notes him as stating his opinion of the Bill as follows:

"When we had left the old Government he had thought we had gotten rid forever of the slavery agitation....But to his surprise he finds that this Government assumes the power to arm the slaves, which involves also the power of enamcipation....It was regarded as a confession of despair and an abandonment of the ground upon which we had seceded from the old Union. We had insisted that Congress had no right to interfere with slavery, and upon the coming into power of the party who it was known would assume and exercise that power, we seceded....and we vindicated ourselves against the accusations of the abolitionists by asserting that slavery was the best and happiest condition of the negro. Now what does this proposition admit? The right of the central Government to put slaves into the militia, and to emancipate at least so many as shall be placed in the military service. It is a clear claim of the central Government to emancipate the slaves."

"If we are right in passing this measure we were wrong in denying to the old government the right to interfere with the institution of slavery and to emancipate the slaves."

"He now believed....that arming and emancipating the slaves was an abandonment of this contest - an abandonment of the grounds upon which it had been undertaken."

The issue was slavery, not tariffs.

Walt

[thatdewd]

You are slightly more credible than Stand Watie.

I thank you, and my Indian ancestors would be proud. However, your flattery aside, I still object to your cruel Lincoln-bashing, your bizarre belief that he never meant what he wrote or said, and that it always meant something besides what he said it did. Using that same sort of schizophrenic reasoning, you probably think Hitler was trying to promote Judaism, or that George Bush is merely a willing pawn of the British Crown in it's illicit drug empire. I wouldn't be surprised if you even thought the Constitution was a "Pact with the Devil", oh wait, you DO. No wonder you consider Mr. Lincoln to be "DIShonest Abe", a pathological liar incapable of either writing or speaking what he really meant. As Lincoln once said: "I fear explanations explanatory of things explained." LOL - That's what your revisionist fraud is, Walt, "explanations explanatory of things explained". If I have to choose between your explanation of what Lincoln meant versus his, I think I'll go with his.

[mac_truck]

There had been riots in the streets (much of it caused by Southern sympathizers) when troops from other states moved through Baltimore, a not too common occurrence back when the armed coercion of states by other states was thought to be wrong.

The troops you refer to were the 6th Massachusetts Regiment, one of the first to respond to President Lincoln's call to arms. They were on their way to Washington to defend the capitol. There was no direct rail line through Baltimore, so the troops had to de-rail and move through town to board another train to take them to DC.

I believe both the governor of Maryland and the Mayor of Baltimore were aware of this when they ordered the railroad bridges, and telegraph links to Washington, destroyed.

[mac_truck]

The way things are going, Texas will eventually have an Hispanic governor as a result of the number of people crossing the border

Jeez, do you actually believe this is the only way a hispanic can get elected governor in Texas? If a hispanic republican ran against a anglo democrat for governor, would you vote for the democrat?

[mac_truck]

So you should be able reference Tariffs in the Statements of Secession from the various states, in which they list their reasons for seceding right?

Happily. See the Georgia declaration of causes (one of the four states to do so). It speaks of the tariff over several paragraphs.

I did two seperate word searches on the Geogia declaration and got no matches for "tariff". How come, if tariffs were such an important cause to disunite?

[rustbucket]

Jeez, do you actually believe this is the only way a hispanic can get elected governor in Texas? If a hispanic republican ran against a anglo democrat for governor, would you vote for the democrat?

My, my, we are assuming things, aren't we. You are beginning to sound like the Yankee in post 695. (If you are not a Yankee, I apologize for even implying you might be one.)

The person I vote for could be purple for all I care. I voted for a Hispanic for mayor of Houston last city election. He was a Republican and a good guy. I will work for his election for mayor and for higher office if he chooses to run again.

The voting here tends to be along racial lines. This is somewhat similar to the famous 2000 red-blue vote map of the US that was explained as sophisticated urban voters versus dumb country hicks by some but which clearly simply reflected minority versus majority population distributions and voting patterns. Look at the blue counties along the Rio Grande.

Hopefully, Republicans will continue to connect with Hispanic voters. If they don't, then Republicans are doomed in Texas because of the rising Hispanic population and the absolute block voting among blacks.

[rustbucket]

The troops you refer to were the 6th Massachusetts Regiment, one of the first to respond to President Lincoln's call to arms. They were on their way to Washington to defend the capitol. There was no direct rail line through Baltimore, so the troops had to de-rail and move through town to board another train to take them to DC.

I believe both the governor of Maryland and the Mayor of Baltimore were aware of this when they ordered the railroad bridges, and telegraph links to Washington, destroyed.

What was it exactly that you believe the governor and mayor were aware of? That the troops involved in the earlier riots were the 6th Massachusetts? That the troops had to de-rail and reboard another train because the train lines didn't connect. That the troops had been going to Washington to defend the capitol?

These were all things known to everyone in the city. How is it that the governor and mayor could not have been aware of them?

[4CJ]

I thank you, and my Indian ancestors would be proud. However, your flattery aside, I still object to your cruel Lincoln-bashing, your bizarre belief that he never meant what he wrote or said, and that it always meant something besides what he said it did.

My Cherokee/Creek ancestors would be proud as well. I'll take stand watie any day. The Lincoln lied through his teeth and invaded a sovereign country - he did not walk on water as some tend to believe. Dims cannot post any law that the Confederacy broke, only attempt to cast moral aspersions in an attempt to castigate men that held the same beliefs as the founders, and that simply desired to exercise the right to self-government.