Posted on 04/02/2002 9:45:23 PM PST by VinnyTex
Certain neo-conservatives have responded to the publication of my book, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War , with quite hysterical name calling, personal smears, and slanderous language. The chief practitioners of this vulgar means of public discourse are Alan Keyes and employees of his Washington, D.C. based "Declaration Foundation."
On the Foundation?s Web site on Easter Sunday was a very pleasant, Christian blessing, located right below a reprinting of Paul Craig Roberts?s March 21 Washington Times review of my book (" War on Terrorism a Threat to Liberty? "). In a very un-Christian manner the Declaration Foundation accuses Roberts (and myself, indirectly) of "ignorance and calumny." According to Webster?s College Dictionary "calumny" means making false and malicious statements intended to injure a reputation, slander, and defamation. Let?s see if what Roberts said in his column fits that definition.
"Lincoln used war to destroy the U.S. Constitution in order to establish a powerful central government," says Roberts. This is certainly a strong statement, but in fact Lincoln illegally suspended the writ of habeas corpus; launched a military invasion without consent of Congress; blockaded Southern ports without declaring war; imprisoned without warrant or trial some 13,000 Northern citizens who opposed his policies; arrested dozens of newspaper editors and owners and, in some cases, had federal soldiers destroy their printing presses; censored all telegraph communication; nationalized the railroads; created three new states (Kansas, Nevada, and West Virginia) without the formal consent of the citizens of those states, an act that Lincoln?s own attorney general thought was unconstitutional; ordered Federal troops to interfere with Northern elections; deported a member of Congress from Ohio after he criticized Lincoln?s unconstitutional behavior; confiscated private property; confiscated firearms in violation of the Second Amendment; and eviscerated the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
A New Orleans man was executed for merely taking down a U.S. flag; ministers were imprisoned for failing to say a prayer for Abraham Lincoln, and Fort Lafayette in New York harbor became known as "The American Bastille" since it held so many thousands of Northern political prisoners. All of this was catalogued decades ago in such books as James G. Randall?s Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln and Dean Sprague?s Freedom Under Lincoln.
"This amazing disregard for the Constitution," wrote historian Clinton Rossiter," was "considered by nobody as legal." "One man was the government of the United States," says Rossiter, who nevertheless believed that Lincoln was a "great dictator."
Lincoln used his dictatorial powers, says Roberts, to "suppress all Northern opposition to his illegal and unconstitutional acts." This is not even controversial, and is painstakingly catalogued in the above-mentioned books as well as in The Real Lincoln. Lincoln?s Secretary of State William Seward established a secret police force and boasted to the British Ambassador, Lord Lyons, that he could "ring a bell" and have a man arrested anywhere in the Northern states without a warrant.
When the New York City Journal of Commerce published a list of over 100 Northern newspapers that opposed the Lincoln administration, Lincoln ordered the Postmaster General to deny those papers mail delivery, which is how nearly all newspapers were delivered at the time. A few of the papers resumed publication only after promising not to criticize the Lincoln administration.
Lincoln "ignored rulings hand-delivered to him by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney ordering Lincoln to respect and faithfully execute the laws of the United States" says Roberts. Absolutely true again. Taney ? and virtually all legal scholars at the time ? was of the opinion that only Congress could constitutionally suspend habeas corpus, and had his opinion hand delivered to Lincoln by courier. Lincoln ignored it and never even bothered to challenge it in court.
Roberts also points out in his article that "Lincoln urged his generals to conduct total war against the Southern civilian population." Again, this is not even controversial. As pro-Lincoln historian Steven Oates wrote in the December 1995 issue of Civil War Times, "Lincoln fully endorsed Sheridan?s burning of the Shenandoah Valley, Sherman?s brutal March to the Sea through Georgia, and the . . . destructive raid through Alabama." James McPherson has written of how Lincoln micromanaged the war effort perhaps as much as any American president ever has. It is inconceivable, therefore, that he did not also micromanage the war on civilians that was waged by his generals.
Lincoln?s war strategy was called the "Anaconda Plan" because it sought to strangle the Southern economy by blockading the ports and controlling the inland waterways, such as the Mississippi River. It was, in other words, focused on destroying the civilian economy.
General Sherman declared on January 31, 1864 that "To the petulant and persistent secessionists, why, death is mercy." In a July 31, 1862 letter to his wife he said his goal was "extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least part of the trouble, but the people." And so he burned the towns of Randolph, Tennessee, Jackson and Meridian, Mississippi, and Atlanta to the ground after the Confederate army had left; bombarded cities occupied only by civilians in violation of the Geneva Convention of 1863; and boasted in his memoirs of destroying $100 million in private property and stealing another $20 million worth. All of this destroyed food stuffs and left women, children, and the elderly in the cold of winter without shelter or food.
General Philip Sheridan did much of the same in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, burning hundreds of houses to the ground and killing or stealing all livestock and destroying crops long after the Confederate Army had left the valley, just as winter was approaching.
"A new kind of soldier was needed" for this kind of work, writes Roberts. Here he is referring to my quotation of pro-Sherman biographer Lee Kennett, who in his biography of Sherman wrote that "the New York regiments [in Sherman?s army] were . . . filled with big city criminals and foreigners fresh from the jails of the Old World." Lincoln recruited the worst of the worst to serve as pillagers and plunderers in Sherman?s army.
Lincoln used the war to "remove the constraints that Southern senators and congressmen, standing in the Jeffersonian tradition, placed in the way of centralized federal power, high tariffs, and subsidies to Northern industries." Indeed, Lincoln?s 28-year political career prior to becoming president was devoted almost exclusively to this end. Even Lincoln idolater Mark Neely, Jr., in The Fate of Liberty , noted that as early as the 1840s, Lincoln exhibited a "gruff and belittling impatience" with constitutional arguments against his cherished Whig economic agenda of protectionist tariffs, corporate welfare for the railroad and road building industries, and a federal government monopolization of the money supply. Once he was in power, Lincoln appointed himself "constitutional dictator" and immediately pushed through this mercantilist economic agenda ? an agenda that had been vetoed by president after president beginning with Jefferson.
Far from "saving the Union," writes Roberts, Lincoln "utterly destroyed the Union achieved by the Founding Fathers and the U.S. Constitution." The original Union was a voluntary association of states. By holding it together at gunpoint Lincoln may have "saved" the Union in a geographic sense, but he destroyed it in a philosophical sense.
Paul Craig Roberts based his column on well-documented facts as presented in The Real Lincoln. In response to these facts, in a recent WorldNetDaily column the insufferably sanctimonious Alan Keyes described people like myself, Paul Craig Roberts, Walter Williams, Joe Sobran, Charles Adams, Jeffrey Rogers Hummell, Doug Bandow, Ebony magazine editor Lerone Bennett, Jr., and other Lincoln critics as "pseudo-learned scribblers," with an "incapacity to recognize moral purpose" who display "uncomprehending pettiness," are "dishonest," and, once again, his favorite word for all who disagree with him: "ignorant."
"Ignorant" and "slanderous" is the precise language one should use to describe the hysterical rantings and ravings of Alan Keyes and his minions at the so-called Declaration Foundation.
April 3, 2002
Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail ] is the author of The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (Forum/Random House 2002) and professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland.
Copyright 2002 LewRockwell.com
I have agreed to answer your queries on another thread; altho it may take a while to do so. I am willing to engage in honest and intelligent debate.
On this thread, I first posed questions to you. You are attempting, as I see it, to wriggle. You answer first; I asked first.
Petty scum I have not mentioned nor addressed you.
Please extend the same courtesy to me.
You are simply out of your league when you address me.
Oh I can assure you that he has read it; and understands it. I enjoy destroying lying cockroaches. He will hang by the rope of his own choice.
I'd be ashamed to be associated with him, myself, even if I were pro-secession.
You know Richard I am a Jarhead; a real one; unlike your bud WhiskeyPooper. You are really beginning to disappoint me. Now I agreed on another thread to furnish, should I find them, quotes of the Founders supporting secession. I have asked you, in this thread, to 'splain how the Ape's actions were "Constitutional". Why are you running?
It is obvious you will not change my mind, nor I yours....so carry on your conversation with those here who are selective about the issue.
Regards.....
Is Lincoln a "Pol Pot?"
Did he order his generals to order rape?
Yes or no?
Is that hard?
Richard F.
Answer my questions, which were posed to you first; --first.
rdf and others were defending themselves against DiLorenzo's apparently baseless charge that they unfairly accused him of calumny. That is part of what this thread is about, namely commenting on the worth, if any, of DiLoranzo's article.
You suggested that the topic change to something you wanted to talk about.
rdf said he would cooperate with your desire to change the subject and address the topics you raised if you answered a couple of questions.
Then you said repeatedly that because you asked, he had some kind of obligation to answer.
You seem to think that if you want to change the subject of a thread and others don't go along with you that gives you some reason to say nasty things about them. If they won't let you evade difficult questions and won't cooperate in your trying to redirect the thread, you characterize them as running away in disarray.
That doesn't make sense to me. To me your demand for them to dance to your tune is unjustified.
Once the war brokeout, a convention was held in Wheeling which formed a breakaway Virginia legislature which they proclaimed to be loyal to the Union. Congress recognized this legislature as the legitimate Virginia legislature. They then voted to partition the state and once Congress approved they reformed themselves as the West Virginia legislature. That is the short version of what happened.
I can't believe DiLorenzo isn't ashamed to keep repeating this fantasy. There is NO evidence that Lincoln thought about economic policy AT ALL from his return to political life in 1854 until his election as president. We have repeatedly shown that the two pathetic attempts he makes at such evidence (his misreading of the Dred Scott speech and his completely false claim about the Lincoln Douglas debates) show instead only that Lincoln thought and spoke only about the danger posed by slavery expansionism to the Union. These are not details -- they are the crucial pieces of evidence (not!) to support the central claim that Lincoln was motivated to seek and use power in support of a corrupt economic agenda. All the DiLorenzo supporters who trust his reading of the secondary sources he (fitfully and inaccurately) cites might have the decency to respond to his claims about these famous Lincoln speeches. I have laid out the case the DiLorenzo is either lying or incompetent to read historical texts.
DiLorenzo has utterly failed to make the case that Lincoln was motivated by an economic agenda. His use of particular texts to give the appearance that he has done so is either dishonest or incompetent. And all of you who keep happily parroting this thesis, with never a single bit of Lincoln's words from the relevant decade to support it, because there is none, are not helping the cause of reasonable discussion.
Some people might think a complete lack of evidence supporting a thesis, and a clear pattern of distortion of the record in place of such evidence, would count against the thesis, but not the epic poets of the tale of the perfidious ape - it just gives them more room to imagine things.
The first item of business here is whether the Roberts column contains calumnies.
It does, and people should admit it.
The other matters can then be addressed amicably.
Regards,
Richard F.
You could not be clearer, and DiLorenzo's apologists could not be more evasive.
Goodnight!
Richard F.
Exactly. Nor was it enough for our founders, who established a Union guaranteeing a republican form of government. Nor would it be enough for any thinking man, once a state or locality decided to enact genocide or ritual cannibalism.
State and local autonomy are political goods of near-fundamental, but not truly fundamental, importance. Even these crucial goods are finally for the sake of justice, for the securing of the rights of man which enable him to serve God.
The notion that local autonomy is a first principle, with no deeper reason justifying it, is a mere prejudice for small over large, few over many. There is nothing of political wisdom in it.
Abortion was wisely left to the states so long as there was a genuine national consensus that it was evil. But the tyrannical elevation of the issue to the national level by the Supreme Court has placed the issue squarely before this people as a nation, and our national commitment to first principles of justice requires that we respond to it as a nation. Abortion has become what Alan Keyes calls a "Declaration Issue," by which he means an issue which, if we fail to resolve it as a national people, will fatally sap our national dedication to the first principles of free government.
The parallel here to slavery is not "mythical" or opportunistic. Slavery was also left, by the prudence of our Founders, at the discretion of states, but with a national commitment to acknowledging its evil and a national presumption that it would eventually end. The issue became a matter for direct federal power only when the Slave Power, via Douglas, Dred Scott, and secession, attempted to break it out of the state level and in various ways impose it or its effects (disunion or repudiation of the principle of equality) on the nation. At that point, to simplify, a solution imposed by federal power was necessary if the nation was to remain based on the twin principles of consent of the governed and respect for the equality of man.
I don't know what "myth" of Lincoln you are referring to. So far as I can tell, those who use this language are the ones who never actually read entire speeches or documents of Lincoln's longer than three paragraphs.
You're out to lunch. Lincoln was a Whig.
The Whigs' direct political antecedents were the National Republicans, the administration party during John Quincy ADAMS ' presidency (1825-1829). They advocated a nationalistic economic policy (the "American System"), but were stymied by the rising power of the Jacksonians, who were thereafter called Democrats. Jackson's inauguration in 1829 began the period of National Republican opposition and prepared the ground for the coalition of political forces which formed the Whig Party. Henry Clay of Kentucky, and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts became the party's leading figures. Webster was more of a nationalist than Clay, as he demonstrated in his famed Reply to Hayne of South Carolina (Jan. 26-27, 1830). But both men urged a program of tariff protection, federally sponsored communication projects (internal improvements), continuation of the national bank, and a conservative public land sales policy--the "American System," much of which could be traced back to Alexander Hamilton's Federalist economic policy of 1791. This was a program with especially strong appeal to merchants and manufacturers whose business operations went beyond state lines. Clay made the president's veto of a bill to recharter the second Bank of the United States the key issue of the election of 1832, but Jackson easily won reelection.
The absence of true nationalism before the Civil War, meant that the party with a national economic policy had to depend on nonsense and war heroes for its two national victories. With no Southerners in Congress during the Civil War, and with a former Illinois Whig, Abraham Lincoln, in the White House, the Republican Party finally passed much of the economic legislation on tariff and banking which the Whigs had long advocated.
Frank Otto Gatell
University of Maryland
For Further ReadingBarkan, Elliott Robert, Portrait of a Party: The Origins and Development of the Whig Persuasion in New York State (Garland 1988)
Brown, Thomas, Politics and Statesmanship: Essays on the American Whig Party (Columbia Univ. Press 1985)
Carroll, E. Malcolm, Origins of the Whig Party (1925; reprint, Da Capo 1970)
Cole, Arthur C., The Whig Party in the South (1913; reprint, P. Smith 1959)
Ershkowitz, Herbert, The Origin of the Whig and Democratic Parties (Univ. Press of Am. 1983)
Howe, Daniel W., The Political Culture of the American Whigs (1980; reprint, Univ. of Chicago Press 1984)
Poage, George R., Henry Clay and the Whig Party (1936; reprint, P. Smith 1965)
It's rather absurd for a nobody like you to be trashing an esteemed scholar like Professor DiLorenzo who is an editor of Ideas on Liberty, a research fellow at the Independence Institute, and a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. And you are????
THE REAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN:
A Debate
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Tuesday, May 7, 2002 At The Independent Institute Conference Center |
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Professor of Economics Loyola College of Maryland Author, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War |
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