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
To use a more modern example - smoking is not illegal in the US. 100 years from now it might be. But we cannot be judged by future standards, only current ones. The same applied to Jackson et al.
Lincoln's contention, and apparently yours, was that the individual states had no right nor power to secede from the Union. To accept yours and his' premise, then YOU find in the Constitution, where Congress has the right/power/duty to override Article 4, Section 3......(l)New states may be admitted by the congress into this Union; but no new state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state, nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states; or parts of states, without the consent of othe legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the congress.
Again....you are trying to have it both ways....
If you would quit yapping and simply look up the history, you will find that every one of those requirements were met. The 'Restored' Virginia Legislature met in Clarksburg and was recognized as the legitimate Virginia legislature by Congress. That restored legislature approved the seperation of the western counties from the rest of the state and congress approved admision of a new state. It was all by the book.
"The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government."
As far as President Lincoln was concerned, this was ex post facto.
Sorry.
When President Lincoln acted, there was no constraint on him.
Walt
Under the Constitution, the Supremes may rule however they like and they have still established no law since Congress alone can legislate. Under the Constitution, the Supremes cannot declare an entire area of law as off limits to all the states unless that area is specifically delegated to the federal governmet or prohibited to the states by the Constitution. That requires a specific grant of power to the court and no amendment is necessary to stop the court from arrogating such power to itself.
You keep referring to passing new federal law. Why can't you cite the existing federal law which needs to be repealed or supplanted? It isn't that you haven't made your bizarre ideas clear, it's simply that they are wrong. Your view of the Constitution is that the federal government may do anything it can do as long as what they want to do isn't expressly forbidden by the Constitution. The exact opposite is the case: The federal government may only do what it is expressly granted power to do by the document and no specific prohibition is necessary.
Arguing from a false premise, as you and your fellow DFers always do, is maddening to those of us who know better than to accept your false premises in the first place. The fact that you boys insist on repeating the same falsehoods over and over in the face of the facts is annoying to say the least.
Okay, Ditto, now deliver your big, melodramatic punch line. Pull out your flask of seltzer water. I'm sure you're just dancing around, waiting for me to say Article IV, Section 3. So YOU can say.......what?
They lied. Congress lied. Next question.
I would believe Alan Keyes over the author of this 'trash'.
Your comparison of Lincoln to Milosevic compliments both men. In our time Milosevic is defending himself and his country in 'Der Hague'. He is being so affective that after 14 'bumbling political' witnesses, the have stopped issuing the 'transcripts', temporarily suspended the 'trial' to refabricate their 'case'.
To get an idea of the similarity of the two men, read the last 2 transcripts ( 18,19th of Feb). Both intended to save the 'union', except Lincoln had 'everything' at his disposal, and besides the 'truth' Milosevic had very little compared to the expanding NATO and Islamic fanatics.
Their inflexible ideology is that Lincoln was perfect, that he interpreted the Constitution perfectly in keeping the Southern States in the Union at gunpoint (killing 620,000 people along the way to do it, not counting the civilians -- almost all Southerners -- who were killed along the way) so that they can pretend that we are a unified country and they get to drive the bus and blow the horn. What you're seeing here is a leadership myth: I'm right, I'm always right, I'm the leader, and you have to do what I say because I'm always right.
That's why their arguments are so stertorous and unyielding. They aren't discussing anything so much as they intend to browbeat everyone. This isn't a discussion, it's a whipping -- that's what they intend it to be. They'll never concede anything, because concession isn't something you do when you're fighting and trying to club someone into submission. That's all Walt wants -- is for you to lick his hand and tell him he's right all the time. I'm sure he's a reasonable guy, if you'll just do that.
As for Richard, I'm not sure what's on his agenda, but I don't think it includes your having an opinion.
President Lincoln wanted no more bloodshed and restoration of the Union.
He floated a lot of schemes to accomplish this. He never insisted that anyone be forced out of the country.
He advocated voting rights for blacks and said repeatedly that the Declaration of Independence applied to them.
Walt
What did they lie about?
... but in fact Lincoln ... 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...
And I guessed that they would do it this morning.
You know I think the West Virginia claim an error, too, but there are things to be said on both sides there, as many have capably done on this forum.
Best to you,
Richard F.
I find the Constitution to be sacred....subject to change--absolutely...thru the method the Founding Fathers provided, i.e., Constitutional Amendment....certainly not by a bunch of yahoo idiot politicians who think they can just make a law and it fits the Constitution, or by a President thinking an EO triumphs the Constitution, or the SC that, contrary to holding good office, can find all sorts of things in the document!
I utterly detest anyone who wants to use this sacred document for toilet paper or to further their own interests when their interests conflict with FACT....whether they cloak themselves in a garment of liberalism or conservatism.
Forget all the spin bullshit that is being pulled....."duly constituted legislative body of West Virginia"....hogwash--they were a cutthroat breakaway group that had wanted statehood previously and were promised the moon......the filthy politicians in the Halls of Congress, as to be expected, did not honor their oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution....
Isn't it funny.....the same old crap continues to this day....and even more blatent....and there are conservative sheeple as well as liberal sheeple eating this swill up.
Sorry, but all the fancy language and smooth talking words don't trump the Constitution when a GOP does it or when a Demoncrap does it.
No, the 'Real Lincoln' was much more interesting and complex than the Rushmore version. But the Rushmore Lincoln is several light years closer to reality that this crap comming from that grubby little propagandist DiLorenzo.
How many outright factual errors and intentional distortions will you need pointed out to you before you accept the fact that DiLorenzo is a fraud pushing an agenda?
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