The rest of that piece falls apart when it claims that DiLorenzo relies almost exclusively on secondary sources (there are dozens upon dozens of direct Lincoln quotes and other period historical quotes in his book and hundreds in his articles) and when it dismisses his primary sources as "out of context" (to date I can only think of one that has succumbed to that charge, and he voluntarily corrected it). To complain that DiLorenzo does not invoke the writings of Charles Kesler, Tom West, and Harry Jaffa is similarly absurd considering that those three are among the main Lincoln cheerleaders alive today. The case Root makes about Lincoln holding pre-1854 anti-slavery strains is similarly specious at best. Most serious scholars have long acknowledged the 1854 turning point that DiLorenzo accepts. While Lincoln did make a few mostly indirect objections to slavery in the years prior to that, to characterize them as anything more than peripheral statements of little immediate consequence is absurd. The fact is that Lincoln missed practically every opportunity he had to condemn slavery prior to 1854 and DiLorenzo is correct to make note of this.