I don't believe so. A major part of DiLorenzo's book is devoted to the argument that the war could have been avoided had Lincoln acted differently - the notion that the war was unneccessary. His major contention is of the possibility that Lincoln could have acted differently but chose not to do so and instead chose the course that led to the war and to his abuses.
Speculation about how someone else thinks can't be proven or disproven, but it's probably inevitable in writing a review and it's much more of a side issue, not something to be singled out for attack. It's not that Masugi substitutes a weaker argument for a stronger, but that he tries to understand how DiLorenzo proceeded.
No. He said it in plainest of terms that DiLorenzo's argument was based upon "If not X and Y, then Z by default." Immediately after that statement, he quotes a summary sentence of Lincoln's position on the tariff from DiLorenzo's book, as if it were the conclusion made by default after the rejection of X and Y. Such is a straw man argument in the classic sense.
Your argument seems to be that because DiLorenzo has data about much Lincoln's Whiggery that is somehow prima facie evidence of Lincoln's motivation for fighting the war.
No. Not in itself. DiLorenzo's argument is that Lincoln highly valued and forwarded Whig economics, that those economics came into play with much objection from the south just before the war, that their result incited a good portion of the southern secession cause, and that from economic terms and priorities, the south's secession had to be opposed in order to collect the tariff and avoid the economic consequences of a free trade neighbor. It's a lot more involved than your attempted simplification to "Lincoln believed X therefore it must've been his motivation." Read the book.
DiLorenzo carefully picks documents out of a much larger collection to "prove" his point. The random letter to a tariff supporter is given importance far beyond what its context warrants.
I'm assuming you are referring to the 1859 one? I don't believe this letter should be underestimated as it clearly shows several things. First, it is one of a set of similar letters by Lincoln from the same period, indicating that the issue had popped onto the radar of the political scene. Second, it indicates in the clearest of terms that by 1859, 60, and 61, Lincoln was still devoted to the tariff cause just as he had been in 1840 when it dominated his politics. Third, in the letter he expresses clear hopes and intentions that the issue will become politically viable in the near future and that a tariff can be installed.
A speech on how the functions of government will go on is erroneously read as representing a thirst for ever more tariff revenue.
Are you referring to the first inaugural? If so, I don't believe that, read in the context of Lincoln's actions proceding it, DiLorenzo erred to call it thirst for tariff enforcement. Read Lincoln's private correspondence about Fort Sumter and other southern garrisons from about December 1860 through the seige. Also read the blockade orders. One clear and dominating theme that appears throughout them is a near-obsessive concern for making sure the tariff revenue is collected - practically above all else in some cases.
The whole argument that a war to liberate the slaves would have been regarded as a legitimate war by DiLorenzo is a dubious redherring he throws in. Given his support for secession and state's rights, I suspect he like others in his camp would find such a war equally reprehensible, not just at the time, but even today, were he honest.
Once again, your speculation is irrelevant and inconsequential. You are starting to behave like a broken record, x, repeating flawed forms of argumentation that have already been exposed. Why is that?
And though the war did eventually become one for liberation of the slaves, that doesn't cause DiLorenzo to moderate his attacks.
Beyond a propaganda rallying cry and a tactical decision, no. I don't think it ever did. The slaves were freed because it was politically advantageous in the long run for the north to do so, not because of some greater moral calling in warfare.
The problem with applying just war theory to history is that political leaders can't apply the brakes to wars once they begin.
That is not so much a problem with ethical rules of warfare as it is with the political leaders who cannot apply the breaks. Admittedly, most wars are not just. But that does not mean they cannot be, nor does it excuse an unjust war. In Lincoln's case, you will also find it difficult to argue that he didn't stop Sherman because he "couldn't apply the breaks." Lincoln was famous for his detailed hands on management of his armies. He knew what Sherman was doing and consented to it. The war was just in its inception.
Going to war to subjugate another people is just?
Whether or not Lincoln had the right to force the rebel states back under elected federal authority he clearly did have the right to combat and prevent their efforts to promote rebellion in other states and put them under Confederate control.
Arguably yes, but Fort Sumter was not in one of those other states. Richmond was not in one of those other states. The war began in two stages - first when Lincoln sent his expedition force to Sumter and the blockade a week later, then when Lincoln marched his army toward Manassas.
There is a gray area between "war crimes" and legitimate and accepted means of winning a war which may not be particularly nice or kind. DiLorenzo and his kind are too quick to assume that actions committed by Union forces fall into the former and not the latter category.
Excuse it as you may, there is very little gray area about open warfare against civilians for the sole purpose of targetting those civilians with destruction.
Your quote by Augustine is very pretty, but I wish you would stand back a minute and try read it through critical eyes. He seems to be saying the reasons for war and the things that happen in war are all "rightly condemned in war." Wasn't every war fought in an "unpacific spirit?" Doesn't "the fever of revolt, the lust of power" sum up the spirit of the early Confederacy? "The passion for inflicting harm, the cruel thirst for vengeance" had taken hold in the guerrilla wars of Missouri and Kansas and would have gone on even had Lincoln remained passive and appeasing towards the Confederacy.
Yet again, you withdraw your position to tu quoque. Yes, its perfectly possible to find incidents of any one of those things committed by any side. But when considering the justice of a war as committed by the person waging it, such fallacious reasoning fails to even acknowledge the issue at hand - was the side waging the war (the north) just in doing so? My contention, which I do not believe could reasonably be disputed in light of the conduct of Lincoln's armies and the motivations for the invasion itself, is a resounding no.
Lincoln was clearly no angel or saint
Unfortunately some individuals based out of Claremont, CA seem to think otherwise.
nor would any of America's wartime leaders fit that mold.
You appear to be having much difficulty grasping this - tu quoque relativism is by its very nature a non-response to an argument.
Augustine may have the yardstick for getting into heaven, but it's most unrealistic in judging wartime leaders.
The fact that a just war is often not the case bears no relevance on whether or a particular war is just. Try again.
Like has to be compared with like
It _can_ be compared with like, but that does not mean it _must_ be judged by its relativity to a percieved like...that is unless you are a relativist and are accordingly prepared to receive the dubious philosophical consequences of that position. For the record, I am beginning to think that relativism runs strong in your set of beliefs yet I do not think you've realized the consequences yet.
I am readily prepared to admit that Lincoln made mistakes.
Good. That places you well ahead of the Jaffa crowd at Claremont and the Wlat brigade around here on FR.
But behind you, who it seems is not prepared to make the same admission about Jefferson Davis.
Lincoln wanted to maintain the idea that the union had not been broken. The mails, forts, courts and import taxes were virtually the only ways the goverment acted in those days, hence the symbolic importance of the pretence that the government could still collect tariffs. I don't think Lincoln counted on collecting much money from the rebel states, but maintaining a military installation or two was key to keeping the flag flying.
DiLorenzo's ignorance of earlier American history and his willful distortion of Lincoln's record -- his deliberately reading a passage from the Lincoln-Douglas debates out of context to convey the opposite of what Lincoln intended -- make him a very suspect guide to our history. Claremont's views aren't for everyone, but they do take DiLorenzo seriously and take more time to refute him than he really deserves. J.F. Epperson has also done a good job tracking down DiLorenzo's factual errors, distortions of interpretation, and shoddy scholarship.
Your view of the beginning of the war is too clean and rationalistic. It ignores the panic of the time and the rhetoric of conquest indulged in by secessionist leaders. It also ignores the fact that the Confederates began the war and intended to gain territory by doing so. Begin a war and then say, "we just want to be left alone," and it's likely that others won't take your words seriously. That "we just want to be left alone" is more an excuse concocted for the defeated Confederacy than the real spirit of 1861.
That year was not a time of calm, rational discussion or of successful rational planning. It saw a collapse of reason into emotionalism, militant passions, panic and lust for glory. Had reason, good sense, and purposeful, intentional action been stronger then, there would likely have been a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
The Civil War was typical -- on both sides -- of mass ideologically motivated warfare in the industrial age. It was not more brutal on civilians that others of that sort. Sherman's destructive war on Confederate property was unfortunate to those who suffered from it, but it was a war on property not a brutal war on civilian lives.
You have denied that this matters, but you've said nothing to convince me. Essentially, you have a condemnation of the Civil War, of the two World Wars and of other wars in the modern age. But it doesn't amount to a serious indictment of Lincoln or the Union Armies.