No, you never do want to take up the south's shortcommings, do you? Jeff Davis abused power, trampled rights, and installed government intervention and socialistic policies in ways that Lincoln would never have dreamed of. But instead of looking at both sides in the same fashion, Tommy blames Lincoln for everything. DiLusional's agenda smacks of intellectual dishonesty.
Nice work.
That is your opinion.
Here is the opinion of the current Chief Justice:
"Lincoln, with his usual incisiveness, put his finger on the debate that inevitably surrounds issues of civil liberties in wartime. If the country itself is in mortal danger, must we enforce every provision safeguarding individual liberties even though to do so will endanger the very government which is created by the Constitution? The question of whether only Congress may suspend it has never been authoritatively answered to this day, but the Lincoln administration proceeded to arrest and detain persons suspected of disloyal activities, including the mayor of Baltimore and the chief of police."
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, February, 1999
Walt
Masugi is right in pointing out DiLorenzo's neglect of Confederate abuses and violations of civil rights. This makes DiLorenzo's book shallow, simply abuse of Lincoln, rather than a serious consideration of how governments behave in times of Civil War. A true historian of philosophical temperament wouldn't have left out the context of Lincoln's actions. Such a philosophical historian would look for examples of leaders in similar situations to Lincoln, like Davis, and compare the responses of different leaders to such circumstances.
Consequently such a historian would have a realistic yardstick to judge Lincoln against, and wouldn't make the mistake of confusing the expedients that all statesmen resort to when their nations are in extremely hazardous situations with their political philosophies.
DiLorenzo turns a great national tragedy into a a melodrama with a cardboard villain. That's why his book will be forgotten (after he's made his pile) as all such polemics are.
It's also not the case that Masugi indulges in a "straw man" construction in explaining DiLorenzo's concentration on Lincoln's Whig principles. It is not a "straw man." It seems to be a pretty logical and clear explanation of a logical method: Lincoln's motivation couldn't be X or Y, therefore it must be Z. Of course, Masugi doesn't have access to the internal operations of DiLorenzo's mind, but his view is not much of an oversimplification, nor is it in any way invidious.
It describes one of the ways the human mind works. The fact that DiLorenzo has assembled materials about Lincoln's Whiggery doesn't mean that he was working inductively, examining millions of facts until the a-ha or eureka experience occurs.
It's common practice to start with a problem and examine various hypotheses to see if they explain the observed phenomena. Actually, it would have been better had DiLorenzo more rigorously worked by this method. My suspicion is that he was just trying to portray Lincoln in the worst possible light. He seems to have passed over other interpretations in his rush to use the material that he views as most damaging. Speculations about how people think are bound to be simplified and debatable, but they are unavoidable in criticism.
DiLorenzo also readily admits in his book that had the war been waged to free the slaves, had it been properly conducted, and had it been waged in a moral way, it would have been justified.
Good for him, but you don't tell us what was so objectionable or unprecedented about the conduct of the war. Atrocities were certainly not more common in the war than in other wars, at least on the Union side. Blockades and the distruction of property and materiel that could be used in war were also not unprecedented practices. The war was bloody and destructive and tragic, but other conflicts that came before and after it were worse. Casualties were horrible, but the guilt or responsibility for them can't wholly be assessed to one side.
Moreover such a war to free the slaves would have been severely condemned by Southerners and their sympathizers. Much of the contemporary criticism of Lincoln's actions involved attacks on emancipation. In Confederate eyes it was one of his earliest and worst crimes. It's a modern-day, armchair practice to say the war would have been just if certain conditions had been fulfilled, which actually could not be fulfilled. Seen in the context of the time, such a revolutionary war would have been more strongly condemned than what actually happened.
And somehow, I don't quite believe Tom DiLorenzo would have signed on for such a war. Not given all his faith in secession and all his other criticisms of Lincoln. Hummell used this "I would have supported the war if ..." gambit in his own book on the war. But other people are free, on the basis of the books they wrote, to dispute whether such sentiments are in accord with the other arguments such authors make.
Since you haven't provided Masugi's article, I can't comment on the rest. Jaffa does have his cult, but Rockwellism is yet more cultic, and Rockwell has determined to elevate DiLorenzo to a similar status. One can certainly disagree with Jaffa's arguments. He does stretch things some times, and can be too much a cheerleader or even a hero-worshipper. But for better or worse, he does view things philosophically, and also doesn't lose sight of practicalities and the historical context. He certainly does see farther and deeper than a dime-store polemicist like DiLorenzo.