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
Just kidding. Since you have shown that you have a strong stomach by just skimming the book, you owe it to us to read it and report on the funny parts. Wait. That would be the whole book, wouldn't it? Just give us selected highlights.
If you protect me from bad people who yell at me I will post amusing paragraphs . . . let's see . . .
Oh yes, here's one:
As he stated over and over (references mysteriously omitted, DQ), his concern with the issue of slavery was motivated by a desire to use the issue to "save the Union," which was a euphemistic way of saying that he wanted to consolidate governmental power in Washington, D.C. In this regard Lincoln's motivations were identical to those of the Central American revolutionaries who invoked violence in the fight against slavery as a tool to gain or expand state power." Page 48
"The Eastern states must and will dissolve the Union and form a separate government." --Senator James Hillhouse, Connecticut
"Throughout this struggle, the right of a state to withdraw from the Union was not disputed." --Historian Edward Powell, Nullification and Secession in the United States, when speaking of the secession movement in the New England states
Could you please tell us where you found them, and give the date of Sen. Hillhouse's remark and of the Powell book? Who was Powell, and what was his background? Is he well regarded? Can one see his book somewhere? Publisher, political background, etc.?
Thanks in advance,
Richard F.
If you can cite which laws were broken then I would like to hear them.
Are we back to this again? That there must be a law prohibiting something or else it's legal? In that case - please cite the Federal law prohibiting secession.
And what is the ex post facto law in question?
That there must be a law prohibiting something or else it's legal?
Well, yes. That's the generally accepted definintion. And as for the law prohibiting secession, there's this document called the Constitution. Perhaps you've heard of it? Anyway, laws written must not violate the Constitution. And the Supreme Court determined that a Texas law called the Texas Article of Secession did, in fact, violate the Constitution. That is why the Texas actions were illegal.
Let me ask you this. Why would people like Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, Jay and the others spend a torturously hot summer sitting in Philadelphia in the middle of a Yellow Fever epidemic crafting a document that allowed the member states to simply ignore it at will? That was their complaint with the Articles. There was nothing in the Articles of Confederation that compelled the states to respect the wishes of congress or assume their responsibility to their fellow states. The Framers intended to change that defect, not to replace a defective document with another defective document. They created a stronger central government but also included significant protections against that government growing too powerful against either the states or the people. But they did give the government the power to compel states, and to compel people to the wishes of the majority. That was their intention. They did not say you are compelled only when you agree. You are equally compelled when you disagree.
Again, go to Madison for the answer. These were not foolish or naive men. It is amazing the depth of issues they considered and addressed and if they had in any way intended for the Constitution to be anything less than perpetual, they would have provided an orderly process to reach that end, just as they provided an orderly process for amending their document.
They did not expend so much effort nor stake their reputations so decisively on the Constitution only to see the Government that they created be torn apart by shrill and ambitious politicians appealing to partisan passions or local interests.
You must think the Framers were fools if you think secession at will was their intention.
True, but that amendment meant so much to Lincoln that he actually went to congress and signed the document along with the members which was legally meaningless since the President has no imput in the amendment process. But he felt that strongly about it.
Puzzling ... I wonder what this Powell actually was, or did, or wrote.
Glad to see more, if anyone can find it. And do be sure to read all of DiLorezo's columns ... they are the source of much here.
Cheers,
Richard F.
Has anyone else ever suggested that these threads bear a lot of striking similarities to the litigation by which some are seeking reparations for slavery?
PINKO ALERT
Do these people know how you and your fellow travelers vote?
I believe you and your neocon buddies are on a convergence course.
You and these RINOs are all going pink, Pink, PINK.
Here is you revealing yourself on another thread;
I suspect your voting pattern is indicative of that of your statist buds:
==================================
Leesylvanian:
Keep in mind when dealing with WP that you're dealing with a man who favors the government's rights/authority over those of the people. He voted for Clinton twice. 'Nuff said!
Wlat (WhiskeyPapa):
Well, I've never said I voted for Clinton twice, so I am glad you will be glad to post a retraction.What I said was that I had never voted for a Republican presidential candidate. I voted for John Anderson in 1980. In '84 I voted Democratic. Same in '88. In '92 I DID vote for Clinton, although I was for Perot until he went batty. In'96 I didn't vote. In '00, I did vote for Al Gore. --Walt
780 posted on 2/28/02 10:49 AM Pacific by WhiskeyPapa [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 766 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
Are you going to agree?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.