The Weirdest Defense of Lincoln Yet

The financial newsletter writer Jude Wanniski apparently believes that he has mystical powers. In a recent article on Supply Side Investor ("Defending Abraham Lincoln,’ June 25 he criticized my book, The Real Lincoln, while admitting that "I figured I did not need to read the DiLorenzo book." At least he’s more intellectually honest than some of my other critics.

His weird article was a response to an article on LewRockwell.com by Clyde Wilson ("DiLorenzo and His Critics"), who addressed the anti-intellectual penchant of some of my critics to argue that all historical understanding is settled, at least when it comes to Lincoln and the War between the States, and that there is no need for further research. Wanniski apparently didn’t even read Wilson’s article, for he refers to it as a book review, which it definitely is not.

Like many other Lincoln idolaters, Wanniski believes that entire books can be dismissed by simply referring to a simple sentence or two from Father Abraham. Just like that. Just like magic. For example, he uses tongue-twisting Clintonian spin to argue that Lincoln’s 1848 defense of the right of secession was not really a defense of the right of secession. Here’s what Lincoln said: Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.

Ignoring all of American history, including the long history of the belief in the right of secession that I document in The Real Lincoln, Wanniski argues in fine Clintonian fashion that Lincoln only said that a people can "TRY" to secede "IF THEY HAVE THE POWER." But of course, Lincoln’s army murdered 300,000 fellow citizens, including one out of every four white males between the ages of 20 and 40, roughly the equivalent of almost 3 million men if we standardize for today’s population. His army also pillaged, plundered, raped, and burned its way through the South for four years, as I also discuss in my chapter on "Waging War on Civilians" (which of course, Wanniski has not read).

Might makes right is Wanniski’s argument – if it can be called an argument. "This is why Lincoln is admired," he says. Well, if that’s true, then the former Soviet Union must be every bit as "admirable" in Wanniski’s world for it, too, kept together a vast Union by violence and murder. He probably also applauds the mass murder of the Chechens by the Russian government, which has also used its military power to keep Chechnya from seceding. It is telling that Vladimir Putin invoked the legacy of Lincoln as part of his "justification" for mass murdering the Chechens, who were trying to secede from the Russian Union.

If might makes right, as Wanniski argues, then there is no sense studying, learning, and debating history, philosophy, law, politics, religion, economics, or any other subject. Arguments can always be "won" at gunpoint, according to Wanniski.

Wanniski must not know that many Northern newspapers – and, indeed, a large portion of the American population, North and South, in 1860 and 1861 – believed that using military force to prevent a state from seceding would destroy the Union in a philosophical sense because it would no longer be a voluntary compact. In my book I cite dozens of Northern newspaper editorials that bemoaned the fact that doing so would destroy the Jeffersonian principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed (see Howard Cecil Perkins, Northern Editorials on Secession).

Despite his admission of not having read my book, Wanniski nevertheless denounces it as "trivial and sophomoric" because he apparently believes that it does not jibe with his viewpoint on the subject.

Wanniski claims that I "do not know" that almost all whites were racists in the mid 19th century, including Abraham Lincoln. Yet I comment on precisely that point in my book by discussing how Lincoln’s persistent denunciations of racial equality, and his lifelong desire to deport all the black people in America to Africa, Haiti, or Central America, were in keeping with what nearly everyone in the North believed at the time. I bring it up in the book because the Lincoln Cult adamantly denies that Lincoln held such views, contrary to the words he spoke and the actions he took over his entire lifetime. But Wanniski would know nothing of this, since he didn’t read the book.

(*sigh*) I'm just as fed-up with Tommy as the rest of you all are, but I noticed he has ratcheted up the rhetoric at the expense of the truth. Again,

...Lincoln’s persistent denunciations of racial equality, and his lifelong desire to deport all the black people in America to Africa, Haiti, or Central America,

Now according to my dictionary deportation is the forcible removal of someone against their will. The only major political figures in the United States that I am aware of who advocated the forcible removal of free blacks were Stephen Douglas and Jefferson Davis. Have any of you come across a Lincoln quote that backs up Tommy D's claim?

Allowing states to secede at will would destroy the Union in a literal, physical sense. By the time Lincoln took office the Old Union had been destroyed by the secessionists. The only question was whether an attempt would be made to restore some form of Union, or whether the present territory of the US would deteriorate into a Europe-like condition of constantly clashing countries.

(To be slightly too alliterative.)

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.

DiLorenzo still can't comprehend the difference between the natural right to revolution when faced with intolerable oppression with some mythical legal right to secession at will (i.e. ignore the law and Constitution because you feel like it.) Government and nations are not child’s games. You don’t have a right to take your ball and go home because the other kids won’t play the way you want to.

I'll bet DiLorenzo got his butt whooped a lot as a kid.

Have any of you come across a Lincoln quote that backs up Tommy D's claim?

Just the opposite. Lincoln always quilfied his support for Colonization as voluntary, as did Henry Clay, James Madison and every other supporter of the American Colonization Society. They could not understand why a black would even want to stay in this country, North or South (and frankly in the mid 19th century, I doubt I could have understood it either) but they were willing to have them stay if they so chose.

Merriam Webster's Collegiate disagrees with you. Were you relying on your own vocabulary or did you look it up? Here's their version. deportation: the removal from a country of an alien whose presence is unlawful or prejudicial.

Looks like that covers most usages. If you wish to stress the forced method, you might try an adjective. Of course that steals your thunder and leaves very little of the narrow point you were attempting to make.

Obviously any contemplated method of colonization would have to have had the legal system behind it, if for no other reason than to account for expenses and costs. Slaves or new ex-slaves could easily have been declared aliens - they were not citizens at the time - and the proponents of colonization certainly considered their presence in North America prejudicial. Again, voluntary, forced, coerced, or encouraged is a matter for an adjective, the term "deportation" just won't carry that load.

If you look at the legal definition of deportation it is clear that it is an act by the government to remove a person from the country for any reason. Lincoln never once advocated the expulsion or deportation of free blacks. If he is to be criticized for promoting voluntary emigration then that criticizm applies to a lot of other people, too. John Breckenridge and Robert Lee for a start.

Not necessarily, at least not how Lncoln and tens of thousands of other Americans viewed it. Organizations which promoted voluntary emigration of free blacks existed for decades prior to the war and were supported by prominent people, Breckenridge and Lee for example. Liberia had been established for this purpose and had been growing for some time prior to the Civil War. This was not forced expulsion and did not have the force of government behind it. Lincoln at no time and under no circumstances ever suggested using the government to deport free Blacks, regardless of the legal justification you claim to have found. DiLorenzo is wrong on this.

On the other hand, according to his biographers, Jefferson Davis might have found your arguments compelling. Wile he firmly believed that the proper position for blacks in society was as slaves, there is at least one instance where he expressed an opinion on what to do with free blacks should slavery ever end. His solution was a forced migration of blacks out of the United States to Mexico and Central America. He probably would have agreed with you findings. Lincoln, however, would not.

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