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
Here we go again!
Cheers,
Richard F.
Let's start with this: Roberts compared Lincoln to Pol Pot ... said, in fact, that he was worse!
That is a calumny.
Next, you might like to see the review at Amazon.com of Neely's work, which DiLorezo "cites," if one may use the expression, with approval, on, as far as one can make out, Lincoln's mood or manner.
*******
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
If Abraham Lincoln was known as the Great Emancipator, he was also the only president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Indeed, Lincoln's record on the Constitution and individual rights has fueled a century of debate, from charges that Democrats were singled out for harrassment to Gore Vidal's depiction of Lincoln as an "absolute dictator." Now, in the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Fate of Liberty, one of America's leading authorities on Lincoln wades straight into this controversy, showing just who was jailed and why, even as he explores the whole range of Lincoln's constitutional policies.
Mark Neely depicts Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus as a well-intentioned attempt to deal with a floodtide of unforeseen events: the threat to Washington as Maryland flirted with secession, disintegrating public order in the border states, corruption among military contractors, the occupation of hostile Confederate territory, contraband trade with the South, and the outcry against the first draft in U.S. history. Drawing on letters from prisoners, records of military courts and federal prisons, memoirs, and federal archives, he paints a vivid picture of how Lincoln responded to these problems, how his policies were actually executed, and the virulent political debates that followed. Lincoln emerges from this account with this legendary statesmanship intact--mindful of political realities and prone to temper the sentences of military courts, concerned not with persecuting his opponents but with prosecuting the war efficiently. In addition, Neely explores the abuses of power under the regime of martial law: the routine torture of suspected deserters, widespread antisemitism among Union generals and officials, the common practice of seizing civilian hostages. He finds that though the system of military justice was flawed, it suffered less from merciless zeal, or political partisanship, than from inefficiency and the friction and complexities of modern war.
Informed by a deep understanding of a unique period in American history, this incisive book takes a comprehensive look at the issues of civil liberties during Lincoln's administration, placing them firmly in the political context of the time. Written with keen insight and an intimate grasp of the original sources, The Fate of Liberty offers a vivid picture of the crises and chaos of a nation at war with itself, changing our understanding of this president and his most controversial policies.
******
There is much more to say and to document. For now, I repeat that DiLorenzo is an intellectually shabby propagandist.
And the facts will bear that out, as they are developed here and elsewhere.
Cheers,
Richard F.
You forgot "ululating".
"Lincoln used war to destroy the U.S. Constitution in order to establish a powerful central government," says Roberts.
The words in bold are what grammarians call, "a purpose clause." That is, they make a claim about, in this case, Lincoln's purpose.
I defy anyone to show, from the record, including private letters, that Lincoln used the war to accomplish a design to make the National government powerful.
The actual fact is that he used what he thought mandated or allowed by the Constitution to win the war.
Roberts should be ashamed of himself for making this unwarranted claim.
Richard F.
...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...
West Virginia is one thing, and I'm happy to argue about it. Nevada? Kansas?
What's up with this?
Cheers,
Richard F.
Lincoln urged his generals ...to use rape as a weapon of war...
This is vile, utterly vile.
And Roberts should apologize to the American people for writing it.
Or do any of you folks out there have documentation for such a charge? I demand it. Now.
Richard F.
I think this means war! My money is on Dr. Keyes. The shoddy Prof. DiLorenzo will need a long sabbatical by the time the good doctor is through with him. ;~))
Lincoln recruited the worst of the worst to serve as pillagers and plunderers in Sherman's army.
I have the very document in my hand where Lincoln personally instructed recruiting officers in NYC to select the worst men, and to be sure to send them, inefficiently, to GA. In fact, Lincoln put on a shawl and went to NYC city himself to get these scum, and he personally signed the orders to send them to Sherman, since Sherman had previously requested bad guys for his army. It's all in the record ... somewhere ... probably at lewrockwell.com
What a joke!
Richard F.
I would suggest that DiLorenzo at long last take a look at the Constitution he claims Lincoln was trashing as well as a look at the timelines involved. To begin with, Kansas was admitted to the Union in January 29, 1861 - over a month before Lincoln was inagurated. Secondly, the Constitution is silent on the subject of how a territory becomes a state, only stating that a majority of the votes in Congress are required. A piece of legislation called an enabling act is introduced in both houses and it gets voted on. In the case of Nevada, the enabling act was introduced in February 1864, passed both houses, and was signed by President Lincoln on March 21, 1864. Likewise with West Virginia, the enabling act passed Congress on December 31, 1862 with the provision that the state constitution mandate gradual emancipation. The constitution was so amended and Lincoln signed the statehood legislation on April 20, 1863 to take affect 60 days later. I fail to see where the Constitution was violated in either case.
This pretty much says it all.
Who can pay attention to this clown after his latest howler.
Wonder what Jefferson said to his "good friend Tocqueville," as Dilorenzo once put it, on the question of the admission of Kansas? Wait ... Jefferson was dead then? ... well, quickly scrub the lewrockwell.com site ... mustn't let folks know that we actually said this ...
What morons!
Cheers,
Richard F.
Ten dollars says lewrockwell.com edits the DiLorenzo rant by tomorrow morning.
Remember the Jefferson/Tocqueville friendship!
LOL
Richard F.
The more I read by you, the better I like capital letters.
I won't take that bet. Rocksmell uses us a fact checkers for DiLorenzo's rants.
BTW... The vote among citizens of Nevada on statehood appears to about 8-1 in favor according to this site Myths and Facts on Nevada Statehood. There does seem to have been some political games played to create Nevada, but it does not seem to have been anything unconstitutional. The territory was carved out of what was Utah territory after the Comstock load was discovered, but there was popular support in Nevada for statehood.
Here's another example of DiLorenzo's 'exhaustive research' showing up in print. (This guy is such a putz. This stuff is so easy to look up a 12 year old could do it.) The Anaconda plan was not Lincoln's, was not especially aggressive and was never implemented.
Source: http://www.civilwarhome.com/anacondaplan.htmThe Anaconda Plan
"Winfield Scott's original plan fighting the rebellion"The first military strategy offered to President Abraham Lincoln for crushing the rebellion of Southern states was devised by Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott. From April 1 through early May 1861 Scott briefed the president daily, often in person, on the national military situation; the results of these briefings were used by Scott to work out Union military aims.
About 3 May Scott told his protégé, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, that he believed an effective "Blockade" of Southern ports, a strong thrust down the Mississippi Valley with a large force, and the establishment of a line of strong Federal positions there would isolate the disorganized Confederate nation "and bring it to terms." Contemporary sources said McClellan called it Scott's "boa-constrictor" plan. Scott then presented it to the president, in greater detail, proposing that 60,000 troops move down the Mississippi with gunboats until they had secured the river from Cairo, Ill., to the Gulf, which, in concert with an effective blockade, would seal off the South. Then, he believed, Federal troops should stop, waiting for Southern Union sympathizers to turn on their Confederate governors and compel them to surrender. It was his belief that sympathy for secession was not as strong as it appeared and that isolation and pressure would make the "fire-eaters" back down and allow calmer heads to take control.
But the war-fevered nation wanted combat, not armed diplomacy, and the passive features of Scott's plan were ridiculed as a proposal "to squeeze the South to military death." The press, recalling McClellan's alleged "boa-constrictor" remark, named the plan after a different constricting snake, the anaconda. The plan was not adopted, but in 1864 it reappeared in aggressive form. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 2-front war, fought in Virginia and Tennessee, pressed the Confederates, while Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's march through Georgia to the sea helped "squeeze the South to military death.
Source: "Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War" Edited by Patricia L. Faust
Oh what the heck, let's take another shot at DiLorenzo, shall we? The Geneva Convention of 1863. It was actually the Geneva Convention of 1864 but that is the least of the errors. That agreement provided for the neutrality of ambulance and military hospitals, the non-belligerent status of persons who aid the wounded, and sick soldiers of any nationality, the return of prisoners to their country if they are incapable of serving, and the adoption of a white flag with a red cross for use on hospitals, ambulances, and evacuation centres whose neutrality would be recognized by this symbol. Nothing at all concerning the treatment of civilians. What I believe DiLorenzo is thinking of is the Fourth Geneva Convention held in 1949. In that convention the attending nations agreed to extend and codify existing provisions for four groups of victims - the sick and wounded, shipwrecked sailors, prisoners of war and civilians in territory occupied by an army. But even then, the subject on bombing cities occupied by civilians alone wasn't addressed so I confess that I haven't a clue what he is talking about. It's pretty obvious that he doesn't either.
I must tell you I am not up to speed for sure on how West Virginia came into being.
Lincoln did no such thing. Pure economics and the industrial revolution destroyed slavery. Lincoln was just in the right place at the time.
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