Posted on 04/16/2003 5:44:44 AM PDT by Lady Eileen
Washington, DC-area Freepers interested in Lincoln and/or the War Between the States should take note of a seminar held later today on the Fairfax campus of George Mason University:
The conventional wisdom in America is that Abraham Lincoln was a great emancipator who preserved American liberties. In recent years, new research has portrayed a less-flattering Lincoln that often behaved as a self-seeking politician who catered to special interest groups. So which is the real Lincoln?
On Wednesday, April 16, Thomas DiLorenzo, a former George Mason University professor of Economics, will host a seminar on that very topic. It will highlight his controversial but influential new book, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War. In the Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo exposes the conventional wisdom of Lincoln as based on fallacies and myths propagated by our political leaders and public education system.
The seminar, which will be held in Rooms 3&4 of the GMU Student Union II, will start at 5:00 PM. Copies of the book will be available for sale during a brief autograph session after the seminar.
Now that conclusion is utter nonsense. It is well known that Jefferson wrote to Madison in reference to the contents of the Constitution and provided a basis for many of the proposals Madison made. Madison in turn wrote back to him with similar commentary of what was happening. In a sense, Madison was both Jefferson's voice and his ears at the convention.
That Jefferson was aware of its formation is documented directly in his autobiography. It is also considered a key turning point in American history that Jefferson decided not to endorse the opposition to the document during Virginia's ratification. Virginia had two strong and prominent founding fathers who were not keen to the ratification of the Constitution: Patrick Henry and George Mason. Had Jefferson lent his name to their side, it would have been impossible for Madison to overcome.
And all that goes without saying that Jefferson himself was a two term president under the Constitution and was actively involved in the top levels of the government prior to his own presidency under the first two administrations to occur by that Constitution. In other words, to suggest that Jefferson should not be regarded as an expert on the Constitution is just plain silly.
If you are going to make that request of others for no other reason than their criticism of Lincoln, may I make a similar request from you?
My request: Stop making the same arguments as Karl Marx.
Marx adored Lincoln and sang his praises in the form of arguments not unlike those you are currently using right here on this forum.
It seems to me that almost all of that reviewer's complaints are a few typos in the footnotes (which, by the way, occur a lot more often in ANY book than most realize). If that is the worst thing about DiLorenzo's book, I'd say he's in pretty good shape.
But those who disagree with DiLorenzo really haven't yet had their say in the press
Excuse me? Where exactly have you been for the last year, x? For a few months after the book's initial publication, the Declaration Foundation and Claremont Institute were publishing/sharing attacks against DiLorenzo and his book on a weekly basis. One of those rant was even picked up by National Review (which has drifted from a forum of debate over Lincoln back in the days when Harry Jaffa and Frank Meyer did their point/counterpoint series of articles on him to the current publication, where little else about Lincoln but praise ever makes it into print).
To say that these types haven't had a chance to make their case on DiLorenzo's book is akin to claiming that Bill Clinton never got a chance to defend himself against impeachment. It just happens to be the case with both that when those cases were made, they came out intellectually deficient.
The theses DiLorenzo presents aren't new: they go back to the post bellum writings of Confederate apologists.
In my own reading of his book, I found greater similarities to the libertarian approach, which takes its most famous roots in Lysander Spooner's "No Treason." Call Spooner whatever else you like, but I don't believe you could get away with describing him as a "Confederate apologist."
Historians have long since disposed of most of his charges, and they'll disprove them again, when Di Lorenzo's book shows up on their radar screens.
News flash, x. It's already shown up on their radar screens and their supposed "best and brightest," including Harry Jaffa, the so-called "greatest living Lincoln scholar," have attempted to take it on. The product they have produced has been sorely dissappointing to date. I do not expect this to change for them at any time in the future.
The abolition of slavery was only one of Spooners many interests, including deism, banking and currency, jury nullification, and a crusade against the postal service. Wendell Phillips's 1847 response to Spooner's pamphlet on the constitutionality of slavery correctly identifies Spooner as essentially an anarchist -- and this well before the Civil War.
Spooner's 1867 publication of "No Treason" in De Bow's Magazine, which had been the premiere pro-secession, pro-slavery magazine, suggests that "Confederate apologist" is a pretty good characterization of one aspect of Spooner's activities. Certainly De Bow's published his work precisely as a defence of their own pro-Confederate activities. Their crowing about finding an abolitionist who supported their cause shows how welcome Spooner was to diehard Confederatists in the immediate aftermath of the war as well as today. Fellow travellers may have motives of their own for their actions, but it's the effect of those actions that makes them "fellow travellers" in the eyes of others, and that's as true then as it is now.
It's hard to find so scathing a review as Gamble's critique of DiLorenzo written by someone who actually agrees with the thesis of the work under consideration. Those who disagree with DiLorenzo will find even more to attack in DiLorenzo's myth book. Sloppy research is a sign of sloppy thinking.
Harry Jaffa has certainly been a major Lincoln scholar, but so far as I've seen, DiLorenzo's book has so far received little consideration from scholarly reviews or academic historians, as opposed to ideologues of one stripe or another. When actual historical experts get through with DiLorenzo, given all of the errors that have already been found in the book by laymen, I imagine there won't be very much left.
But then, the strength of the book hasn't been its documentation or accuracy but in its provision of a rationale for what people want to believe in spite of the facts, so it will always be cherished by true believers, regardless of how much it is discredited.
"We are all Republicans--we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is free to combat it."
Thomas Jefferson March 4, 1801
Walt
That should get you started. Come back when you finish those I’ll give you more.
So far as I can tell, you've quoted the historial record not at all. Maybe I missed it.
You are certainly brazen to be so ignorant, black knight.
Your "position" has no merit.
Walt
They were both revolutions - both attempts to destroy the lawful government.
You neo-rebs can wail about this until the cows come home, but unilateral state secession is outside of U.S. law.
Walt
No, simply because you will tell any kind of lie.
Walt
If you watched the show based on Jay Winek's "April, 1865" then you heard Lee quoted as saying that he "surrendered as much to the goodness of Lincoln as to the army of Grant."
One of the odd things about that show was that they said morale in Lee's army was still good even at the last, but failed to note that his army had 60,000 desertions.
Walt
And once again, I care not what interest you have in posting, but rather in what you post to the record of this thread. Respond only if you desire.
For those who might be taken in by your spiel, though, I point out once again that Spooner was a very minor figure among abolitionists.
That is simply not the case. His book, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery, was one of the key philosophical texts of the abolitionist movement. It was embraced by the Liberty Party in 1849 and recieved widespread circulation by the abolitionists between then and the war. Spooner's philosophical concepts were a major influence on Geritt Smith, one of the only true abolitionists to win a major political office. It also angered many of the Garrisonians and Wendell Phillips, who attempted an intellectually weaker rebuttal of Spooner's book in an effort to counter its growing popularity in the movement. The book also gained Spooner national attention in the political arena for about a decade preceding the war. It came up as a subject on the floor of Congress and even prompted efforts by leaders of the Republican Party, including William Seward, to solicit Spooner's political support in 1860. All of these facts have been brought to your attention previously, x. Yet here you are spouting the same historically false line and belittling Spooner's contribution to a movement he helped revolutionize. That indicates one of two things - willful ignorance or dishonesty.
This can be confirmed by impartial readers who consult the standard historical works on the period.
Which would be??? If those works you are thinking of happen to be what I think they are, I can only say that they are suspect in their historical credibility. Go look at the records of the 1850's if you want a real view of Spooner's relevance. You will see his book in publication. You will see it mentioned in the newspapers and on the floor of Congress. You will see letters from prominent Republicans seeking to court a political endorsement from him that was evidently valued to them. You will see prominent abolitionist organizations such as the Liberty Party endorsing the distribution of his book. You will see abolitionist leaders such as Smith praising it as the central philosophical work of their movement. All of these facts and others directly contradict your claim, x.
The abolition of slavery was only one of Spooners many interests, including deism, banking and currency, jury nullification, and a crusade against the postal service.
And so it was. Spooner was a thoroughly political philosopher on many issues, but having an interest in other things does not preclude one from being an abolitionist any more than your interest in the civil war precludes you from speaking out on welfare reform. Some of those political causes, such as jury nullification, were linked to his abolitionist activity, which included providing legal defense to fugitive slaves. Others were financial and economic issues pertaining to other political disputes of the time. Regardless of the number of causes he took up, Spooner is best known for his book on "The Unconstitutionality of Slavery" and the abolitionist activities related to that book. That his book achieved the attention it did during the late 1840's and the 1850's alone is enough to qualify him as one of the most prominent abolitionists. Add to that his political involvement in abolitionism with Smith, with John Brown, and in the defense of fugitive slaves and you have a man who participated in the movement both philosophically and actively.
Wendell Phillips's 1847 response to Spooner's pamphlet on the constitutionality of slavery correctly identifies Spooner as essentially an anarchist
That it may, though Spooner's libertarian-oriented leanings toward anarchism did not develop fully until after the war. Regardless, those leanings say nothing of your claim that Spooner was but a "minor figure" among abolitionist. In fact, that he attracted enough attention from Phillips to provoke a heated exchange and pamphlet response to his book directly contradicts your initial premise. After all, why would a "major abolitionist" like you have alleged Phillips to have been waste his time and effort responding to someone you term "a very minor figure among abolitionists" unless that person was not as "minor" as you claim?
Spooner's 1867 publication of "No Treason" in De Bow's Magazine, which had been the premiere pro-secession, pro-slavery magazine, suggests that "Confederate apologist" is a pretty good characterization of one aspect of Spooner's activities.
After a brief search, the only reference I can find to Spooner directly submitting something to DeBow's is an 1866 essay in which he proposed a series of economic and banking reforms to help the south in the post-war scene. As best I can tell, he did so, if for no other reason, for the fact that at the time DeBow's was among the most widely read magazines in the south and permitted him to attain the widest audience in the region he was hoping to help recover economically.
I suppose it is possible he submitted other things to them, but it is my understanding that he put out "No Treason" on his own as a pamphlet series. From what I can tell, DeBow's did reprint a portion of No Treason #2 in November 1867. The note at the bottom of its first page indicates that it is a reprint of the pamphlet that was taken from the District Court's office in Massachusetts where Spooner filed it. Thus, your premise that he was some sort of "confederate apologist" writing for DeBow's is, in addition to being outright absurd, historically dishonest.
If you were familiar with the "No Treason" series, you would know that it condemns southern slavery in the harshest of language and denounces the confederate relation to that same form of slavery. It was probably excerpted in DeBow's though not out of love for Lysander Spooner, but rather because the part they excerpted was a strong legal defense against the charge of treason crafted and filed as such by a well known attorney.
Certainly De Bow's published his work precisely as a defence of their own pro-Confederate activities. Their crowing about finding an abolitionist who supported their cause shows how welcome Spooner was to diehard Confederatists in the immediate aftermath of the war as well as today.
Did you even bother to read the segment that was excerpted in DeBows before shooting your mouth off and making that statement, x? It certainly does not appear to be so. There is nothing in it about an "abolitionist who supports the south," nothing about an anti-slavery yankee siding with the confederacy. The part that is excerpted is a heavily-legalistic argument about the crime of treason, what that crime means as a principle of law, and how it does not pertain to the war. The segment also includes a mention of the slaveholder, who he harshly denounces for the "whips and the robbery which he practises upon" slaves. In other words, the passage appears to be exactly what I noted earlier - DeBows reprinted a well-reasoned legal argument pertaining to the crime of treason that had been printed and then filed by Spooner at a Massachusetts court office. They reprinted it because it pertained to an allegation that was politically pertinent to the south at the time. That you argue that it is indicative of some sort of evidence of "confederate apologism" by Spooner can, once again, be explained by only two things: either ignorance resulting from your failure to investigate the segment of "No Treason" as it was excerpted, or willful intellectual dishonesty.
It's hard to find so scathing a review as Gamble's critique of DiLorenzo written by someone who actually agrees with the thesis of the work under consideration.
How so? Every book has its critic, including some who align politically with the author. As I noted previously, Gamble's criticisms are almost entirely complaints about a short list of TYPOS IN THE FOOTNOTES! Now don't get me wrong - typos in the footnotes need to be corrected when found, but if that is the best he's got against the book, I'd say DiLorenzo's in pretty good shape.
Those who disagree with DiLorenzo will find even more to attack in DiLorenzo's myth book.
First, you have yet to substantiate the grounds on which you call it a "myth book." Second, your argument is itself inherently weak as it says nothing of what has actually occured but rather only speculates the unspecified occurrence of something that you desire.
As has been noted, "Gamble's findings" = "typos in a few footnotes." If we hold the following from your argument:
"critic's findings" > "Gamble's findings," or C > A where A = B, your argument may be stated that C > B, or "critics findings" > "typos in a few footnotes." So in other words, the "bar" you have set for DiLorenzo's critics is sufficiently low enough for them to simply find something more than typos in a few footnotes, thus surpassing Gamble. If you wish to call that an accomplishment, be my guest. But all indicators are that you're still only a few steps beyond typos in the footnotes, or in other words exactly what Claremont did - find a typo plus a few disputed interpretations of negligable pertinence to the thesis in the book itself, and harp on them incessantly over the course of three dozen book reviews from the same four writers, each stating the exact same thing only in a different order and with different choices of names by which to call DiLorenzo.
Sloppy research is a sign of sloppy thinking.
May I conclude, then, that you are a sloppy thinker in light of the sign provided by your sloppy treatment of DeBow's relation to Spooner?
Harry Jaffa has certainly been a major Lincoln scholar, but so far as I've seen, DiLorenzo's book has so far received little consideration from scholarly reviews or academic historians, as opposed to ideologues of one stripe or another.
That may be the case with Krannawitter, but what about the others? Are not Jaffa, Masugi, and Ferrier all scholars with academic credentials?
When actual historical experts get through with DiLorenzo, given all of the errors that have already been found in the book by laymen, I imagine there won't be very much left.
So Jaffa & company are simply "laymen" of Lincoln studies? If that is so, then why is Harry regularly referred to as the "greatest living Lincoln scholar" among other things? The obvious answer is that Jaffa is indeed among the most well regarded living academic scholars in the area of Lincoln studies, and those who are among his followers tend to achieve credit of their own from his reflected glory. When it comes to pro-Lincoln scholarship, Jaffa and his school are considered to be among the best of the best. He is a leader in that field and has the academic following of those others around him in the Claremont group. Like it or not, Claremont jumped into the critics circle for DiLorenzo - nay, they practically organized and led the critic's charge against him! The supposed best of the best from the pro-Lincoln side already went after his book, x. Their findings? A couple typos, a single accidental misquote, and a disputed interpretation of another quote or two. In short, the best of the best came up with nothing.
Yes it does, Walt. It indicates that the union is separable in the event that the inhabitants on one region see their interest in separation. Did you not read the quote or something?
The future inhabitants of the Atlantic & Missipi States will be our sons. We leave them in distinct but bordering establishments. We think we see their happiness in their union, & we wish it. Events may prove it otherwise; and if they see their interest in separation, why should we take side with our Atlantic rather than our Missipi descendants? It is the elder and the younger son differing. God bless them both, & keep them in union, if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better." - Thomas Jefferson, to John C. Breckinridge, August 12, 1803
The issue of whether or not the president may suspend the Writ has never been decided.
"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, Noevember, 1999
But Mr. Lincoln can speak for himself
"After the battle of New Orleans, and while the fact that the treaty of peace had been concluded, was well known in the city, but before official knowledge had arrived, Gen. Jackson still maintained martial or military law. Now, that it could be said the war was over, the clamor against martial law,, which had existed from the first, grew more furious. Among other things, a Mr. Louiallier published a denunciatory newspaper article. Gen. Jackson arrested him. A lawyer by the name of Morel procured the United States Judge Hall to issue a writ of hebeus corpus to release Loualier. Gen. Jackson arreted both the lawyer and the judge. A Mr. Holander ventured to say of some part of the mater that "it was a dirty trick." Gen. Jackson arrested him. When the officer undertook to serve the writ Gen. Jackson took it from him, and sent him away with a copy. Holding the judge in custody for a few days, the general sent him beyond the limits of his encampment, and set him at liberty with an order to remain till the ratification of peace should regularly be announced, or until the British should have left the coast. A day or two elapsed, the ratification of a treaty of peace was regularly announced and the judge and the others were fully liberated. A few days more and the judge called Gen. Jackson into court and fined him $1,000. The general paid the fine, and there the matter rested for nearly thirty years, when Congress refunded principal and interest. The late Senator Douglas then in the House of Representatives, took a leading part in the debates, in which the constitutional question was much discussed. I am not prepared to say whom the journals would show to have voted for the measure.
It may be remarked: First, that we had the same Constitution then as now; secondly, that we then had a case of invasion, and now a case of rebellion; and thirdly, that the permanenet right of of the people to Public Discussion, the liberty of speech and the Press, the trial by jury, the law of evidence, and the Habeus Corpus, suffered no detriment whatever by that conduct of Gen. Jackson, or its subsequent approval by the American Congress."
Jackson wasn't even the president.
It's simply beyond you to be fair, isn't it?
Walt
The governor at least was a secessionist and traitor.
Walt
Yes it has, Walt. It's called Ex Parte Merryman. It was issued in 1861. It ruled that Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus was unconstitutional and overturned the arrest of Merryman. The grounds on which it was decided was the historically indisputable fact that the United States Constitution gives the suspension power to the legislature, not the president. But Lincoln didn't like that ruling and didn't have any concern about the authority of the court, so he simply ignored it.
That makes impeachable offense #2, the first being the suspension of habeas corpus itself. Let me know when you are ready to move onto count #3, the division of the state of Virginia into two.
Yes it does, Walt. It indicates that the union is separable in the event that the inhabitants on one region see their interest in separation.
Under natural law, not U.S. law.
The nature of the Union is permanence, and you won't find any of the first generation after the Constitution was adopted saying otherwise.
Walt
He was still the properly elected governor though, and while he favored secession, the legislature had voted him down on that issue, thus Missouri was still in the union. When all the votes were taken, Missouri wanted to remain neutral and avoid the war itself. But Lincoln marched his army in, and when the state government protested that army's invasion of their neutrality, the army went after the state government. In short, Lincoln invaded, conquered, and removed the government of a state that, at the time this act occurred, was still in the union and had even expressed a desire to stay in the union and out of the war.
Yes it has, Walt. It's called Ex Parte Merryman.
Tell that to the Chief Justice.
The Constitution nowhere says what the president may do in regards to the Writ. It only dictates what Congress may or may not do.
Walt
That's funny. I don't see anything about natural law in that quote by Jefferson. I do see a discussion of the tangible political policy of what to do with the new regions to the west of the Mississippi though, and that treatment urges their continued membership in the union but permits their departure if they so desire. Like it or not, Walt, Jefferson and Lincoln were at odds in their view of the union. No ammount of your fibbing, distortion, or equivocation will ever escape that fact.
Taney caused President Lincoln some embarrassment with this, but he could have caused more had he gotten the issue before the whole court. He never did. Ex Parte Merryman is not a Supreme Court decision. But you will doubtless continue to use it to sway the ingnorant and dissatisfied.
Walt
Merryman stayed in jail.
It should be noted that Merryman had participated in treasonous acts when arrested, was a citizen of a loyal state, and after being released, was a serving officer in the rebel army.
Mercy atttended everything Lincoln did. Merryman was exceedingly lucky not to be hanged. As you know, if the standards the rebels often used had been applied, he would have been.
Walt
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