You again? You are wasting my time and everyone's space. I referred you to Boritt's book and you're welcome to read or ignore it as you see fit.
There's nothing controversial about Guelzo's article: Lincoln did promote a free labor economy by encouraging industry, and railroad construction, and settlement of the West. Guelzo even gives you the legislation by name. And his actions were a culmination of a long concern with economic development.
Look at Lincoln's early speeches on discoveries and inventions. Read a basic biography to learn about his interest in establishing banks, roads, and canals in his early career. None of that is disputed.
Look at the 1860 speech in New Haven that Guelzo explicitly refers to, at Lincoln's "Annual Address Before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, September 30, 1859" on free and slave labor, at his "Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, March 21, 1854," at his 1854 "Fragment on Government." If I could locate these documents in a few minutes, what's stopping you?
Some people attack Lincoln for not being a perfect free marketeer, but Guelzo makes clear that he wasn't a 20th century liberal or socialist, and many of those free traders who win the praise of today's libertarian fanatics had a blind spot about slavery and weren't opposed to the US remaining merely a source of raw materials for foreign industry.
Really there's nothing controversial in what Guelzo says. Whatever he leaves out you can find for yourself. It's not my job to remedy the gaps in your education and I'm not running a tutorial for you. Still less am I interested in arguing with you, given how irrelevant what you brought to the table in your original post was to Guelzo's article.
Maybe you'll find somebody else interested in rewriting the article for you and tutoring you on basic points of Lincoln's biography, but that's not something you have a right to demand of those who respond to you.
This article that you support is so much a pants load that I can hardly keep a straight face.
Beginning with the first premise from this quote from the very beginning:
“Abraham Lincoln's greatest love was politics, but his intellectual passion was for what the 19th century called ‘political economy’ - the way economics and politics intersected in society and government. According to his law partner William Herndon, Lincoln ‘liked political economy, the study of it,’
Say it again.........”political economy”......Lincoln ‘liked political economy, the study of it.”
How is political economy defined at the very time that Lincoln was supposed to ‘like’ it?
Here from one of the foremost proponents of ‘political economy’, written in 1837: “Whether discussing usury laws, money and banking, internal improvements, or trade restrictions, the detrimental effect of government intervention is a theme that appears throughout the elements of political economy."
Proponents of this political/social/governmental position advocated total free trade. Essentially they supported liberty, property, peace, free markets, limited government, and sound money.
Another writer described proponents of ‘political economy as knowing that legislators adopt positions that are at variance with successful governmental operations.’
“... legislators, who generally assume the labor of directing the manner in which labor or capital shall be employed, in no manner peculiarly qualified for this task; they are, in many respects, peculiarly disqualified for it. The individual is liable to no peculiar biases, in making up his mind in respect to the profitableness of an investment. If he err, it is because the indications deceive him. The legislator, besides being liable to err by mistaking the indications, is liable to be misled by party zeal, by political intrigue, and by sectional prejudice.” (Francis Wayland)
And this quote: “the individual has no right to commit to society, nor society to government, the power to declare war.”
One only has to read Lincoln's 1860 platform or understand his Henry Clay affiliation, or his bias against the South, or his support of a central bank, or his willingness to bring war on the South to comprehend that he did not believe in “political economy”.
For a much more detailed analysis, see post 138
In fact some people of the period ridiculed him for any association with the movement. See this for example:
“Shelby Cullom, who practiced law beside Lincoln in Springfield, Ill., thought that ‘theoretically . . . on political economy he was great.’”
Let's look at the exact source quote (found here: http://abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/Library/newsletter.asp?ID=137&CRLI=193 ) to see if it means what Guelzo says it means:
“My father,” said Senator Cullom, “took me to Mr. Lincoln at Springfield to have me study law with him. ....I have been with him when he returned from riding the circuit. Mr. Lincoln kept no account books to speak of. ....after trying a case he would take the fee that he received from his client, wrap it up in a piece of paper, write on the back of the paper the name of the case and the amount...ten, fifteen, or twenty five dollars what ever it might be and put the paper in his pocket.
"When Mr. Lincoln came home he would take these papers out of his pockets, one at a time and divide the amounts with his partner, Herndon. Theoretically Mr. Lincoln was strong on financial questions. On political economy he was great. Practically, he knew little about money and took no care of it. As a lawyer in practice, he was very strong before both court and jury. He had a great deal of personal magnetism and his honest, plain way captured the jurors. Mr. Lincoln would lean over the jury, gesturing with his long arms and holding the jurors fascinated with his homely eloquence."
Now as you can plainly see, Guelzo’s quote has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of political economy and is completely out of context.
Then Guelzo has the audacity to claim that he is certain of Mr. Lincoln's reading list.
He says: “Before he was elected the 16th president of the United States, Lincoln “ate up, digested, and assimilated” the premier texts in 19th-century political economy - John Stuart Mill's The Principles of Political Economy (1848), Mathew Carey's Essays on Political Economy (1822), his son Henry Carey's three-volume Principles of Social Science (1858), John Ramsay McCulloch’s The Principles of Political Economy (1825), and Francis Wayland's Elements of Political Economy (1837).”
Except for one book, that paragraph is a total contrivance.
From this source http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/28.2/bray.html#FOOT207
This bibliography attempts to list, in alphabetical order by author, all the books or parts of books that any serious scholar, biographer, or bibliographer has asserted that Abraham Lincoln read. In the interest of completeness, even dubious claims were listed.
The titles taken from Wayne Temple's “Herndon on Lincoln: An Unknown Interview with a List of Books in the Lincoln & Herndon Law Office” consist exclusively of pre-1866 publications that Lincoln could plausibly have read. While they were probably read or used by William Henry Herndon and noticed on the shelves by Lincoln, there is in most cases no corroborating evidence that Lincoln actually read these titles.
John Stuart Mill’s The Principles of Political Economy (1848), Rated as a book that Lincoln “somewhat likely” read. One of the books William H. Herndon says Lincoln “more or less peeped into” (Hidden Lincoln, 117).
Mathew Carey’s Essays on Political Economy (1822), Not listed as either having read or been in the Lincoln offices. W. H. Herndon told Weik that “Carey's political economy” was one of the books on this subject that Lincoln “more or less peeped into.” , however, comes from the fact that there was another Carey (Matthew) who wrote a treatise on political economy in the first half of the nineteenth century, and we cannot know which, if either, Herndon is referring to (Hidden Lincoln, 117).
His son Henry Carey’s three-volume Principles of Social Science (1858), mentioned by an informant or acquaintance, though in an uncertain context as regards title/author, time or place. It is somewhat unlikely that Lincoln read this book.
John Ramsay McCulloch’s The Principles of Political Economy (1825), ...Probably an incorrect title on the part of this author. In the listing McCullough, John Ramsey, Essays on Exchange, Interest, Money and Other Subjects [1850], again no documentation that Lincoln read these items.
The one book that there is certainty was Francis Wayland’s Elements of Political Economy (1837). High probability he read it.
Now, that from multiple sources. Does that give you any increased confidence in your support of Guelzo?
Practically every internet site that you reach through a search engine in checking on Lincoln's “classical” readings will pull up Guelzo’s articles, blogs, and essays. He is attempting to establish credibility with volume rather than any sense of propriety of content.
Thanks to beanshirts for his superb analysis and documentation.