The Real Abraham Lincoln

The Laissez Faire Electronic Times ^ | Tibor R. Machan

[Sir Gawain]

The Real Abraham Lincoln

by Tibor R. Machan

When I came to the USA, and even before when for a year or so I attended the American High School in Munich, Germany, Abraham Lincoln, America's 16th president, was treated by most of my teachers as the greatest and, more important, best US president. Everyone credited him with preserving this free country's union and freeing the slaves, for which, understandably, he was admired and all felt a debt of gratitude.

Then in college, too, I never heard a critical word about Lincoln. The Gettysburg address was always represented to me as perhaps America's greatest post-revolutionary political statement. Professor Harry V. Jaffa, a prominent teacher at my alma mater, Claremont McKenna College, wrote about Lincoln and depicted him as a man who is deeply committed to American political ideals. Judging by his selection of Lincoln quotes, for example in his How to think about the American Revolution (Carolina Academic Press, 1978), this seemed entirely justified. As an example, take the following remark by Lincoln in 1859:

Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result, but even these, are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart. That something, is the principle of "Liberty to all" — the principle that clears the path to all — gives hope to all — and, by consequence, enterprise, and industry to all.

Based on statements such as this one, Jaffa maintained that Lincoln was a champion of the American political tradition. Consider, again, the following from Lincoln:

The expression of that principle ["the idea of political freedom"], in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy, and fortunate. Without this, as well as with it, we could have declared our independence of Great Britain; but without it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government, and consequent prosperity.

Jaffa's major defense of Lincoln comes in Crisis of The House Divided (Doubleday, 1959). He argues forcefully in favor of a very positive assessment of Lincoln, versus Stephen Douglas, as the most honorable statesman of American history. When challenged by others who would come up with a very different assessment of and supporting quotations for such an assessment from Lincoln, Professor Jaffa tells them that "Lincoln's disavowal of abolitionism was absolutely necessary to his political survival in the climate of opinion of Illinois voters in the 1850s. To have failed to make such disavowals would simply have disqualified him as a political leader of the antislavery cause." So, it was politically necessary for Lincoln to disavow his principled objection to slavery, based on his true regard for the meaning of the Declaration, so he could appear to be more moderate than the often violent abolitionists who were widely held in disfavor not just in the South but also in the North. So, all of what Lincoln says about blacks, including disparaging their intellect, must be taken as a political ploy rather than what he really thought.

In response to reading some critics of the Jaffa line, I've started to read up on Lincoln. For example, I've explored much of Edgar Lee Master's tome, Lincoln The Man (Dodd, Mead & Co., 1931) and Charles Adams' When in the Course of Human Events (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). Some of what I have encountered paint Lincoln very differently from how he came across in my early education in America. Of course, there are always detractors and revisionists from the received view, about nearly everything of interest in human history. Heroes and villains are often identified based on the author's ethics, religion and politics, and given the diversity of these views among us, one would expect that the character and achievements of Lincoln, as those of others, are subject to intense debate.

However, there is a difference here, it seems to me. Hardly any dispute seems to be evident about Abraham Lincoln in mainstream or secondary educational forums, be it on PBS or C-Span, in either the class rooms or the text books, or anywhere in the prominent popular media. One exception is "Booknotes," on C-Span, hosted by Brian Lamb. Lamb does ask biographers or other authors of a Lincoln volumes about some of the more difficult aspects of Lincoln's legacy and has had some dissenters from Lincoln admirers on his program, such as Lerone Bennett, Jr., author of Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream (Johnson Pub. Co., 2000).

Yet, most of the time the Lincoln critics are kept away from discussions and the major publishers seem to publish only laudatory works, as if there were no serious dissenting voice. Challengers are considered either non-existent or members of some lunatic fringe. This despite the fact that there can be perfectly sensible questions about whether Lincoln really followed the central elements of the American political tradition. Even his championing of political freedom raises some questions since political freedom may mean no more than the right to take part in politics. That is quite different from the right to individual freedom or liberty, which means the right to act on one's own judgment, even against the majority's will. Pure democracy was, after all, not what the Declaration of Independence announced to be the essence of this country. So a debate about Lincoln would be quite appropriate.

A very different atmosphere surrounds Thomas Jefferson, of course, and it suggests that the historians are embarking on some agenda, with ulterior motives, rather than on the disinterested study of American history. Several works impute to Jefferson dubious motives, not to mention conduct, and there is a lively debate about whether he was a great president, a good man or even a principled Founder of the republic.

The Attack on Free Society

From what I have managed to gather, just as the Jefferson critics are heard out, neither should the Lincoln critics be dismissed. There appears to be a rather peculiar reason why they are dismissed, having little or nothing to do with their scholarship or even relevance. It appears to do with a rather nuanced sort of political correctness, one directed against the nature of a bona fide, pure free society and its necessarily limited government.

To begin with, from the time of the American founding there has been a serious difference of opinion among the major figures as to the kind of government that America should have. This focused mainly on the priorities of our political institution. Should we be mainly concerned with the respect and protection of individual liberty or with making our country united and strong, indeed, so strong that individual liberty gets sacrificed to this strength? Alexander Hamilton, who supported a strong central government, argued about this with Thomas Jefferson who favored limiting government severely. The country's most renowned early supreme court justice, John Marshall, took the Hamiltonian line, favoring judicial as against legislative supremacy, as in Marbury v. Madison (1803).

Then came Lincoln who, contrary to received opinion, seemed less interested in carrying forward the ideals of the US Declaration, which he invoked only when it came to his later discussions of slavery, than in securing a united and thus very powerful American state (needed to keep the country united). And he appears to have believed that once the country was established, individual rights to resist state power had to go. (Professor Jaffa, too, argued that the idea of secession is misguided because democracy is supreme, as against the right to disconnect from the rest of the country. So his loyalty to Lincoln appears to be based more on his own belief that individual liberty is less important than a kind of "America first" stance, never mind its exact content.)

The works I've been reading lately, from various sides of the debate, tend to support a murky view of Lincoln. They suggest more of the ambitious, albeit impressive and even grand, political figure than of the devoted supporter of the unique high American ideals. Contrary to the impressions created by what has to be considered as more a myth or legend than historical reality, Lincoln comes off as a pragmatic, shrewd, but fundamentally not really principled politician. He had goals, yes, but these are not the ones for which he is commonly praised, namely, his devotion to liberty. Rather they were to head up a strong country, a world power, never mind its exact political character.

One way to come to appreciate this view of Lincoln is to consider how utterly unprincipled he sounded about slavery. In this regard Professor Thomas DiLorenzo's book, The Real Lincoln (Prima Publishing, 2002), is quite an eye opener, as is the aforementioned book by Adams, When in the Course of Human Events and, especially, Jeffrey Hummel's Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men (Open Court, 1997). So is the earlier mentioned Lincoln The Man. Not having ever been a scholar about Lincoln, I had been relying mainly on the common view of him, except for occasional skeptical notes from one or another historian or pundit, such as Doug Bandow and Joseph Sobran. So, I had thought that Lincoln always found slavery repulsive, a grievous assault upon blacks and an gross affront to the ideals of the US Declaration.

Slavery Not an Issue

Yet, consider, for example, this from our 16th president's 1860 inaugural address: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." And two years later, as the sitting president, Lincoln wrote: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union. (Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862)" And there is this, as well, from 1858: "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."

One would suppose these remarks would generate a serious and very visible public debate about the man. Yet we have, instead, mostly laudatory works such as William Lee Miller's Lincoln's Virtues (Knopf, 2002) and Stephen B. Oates, With Malice Toward None (HarperTrade, 1993), not to mention Carl Sandberg's Abraham Lincoln, The Prairie Years and the War Years (Harcourt Brace, 1953). I have heard many of the disputes about whether Jefferson's declaration gave authentic expression to his ideals, but I have heard and read nothing like that about Lincoln in prominently published works and discussion forums, despite the pronouncements along lines I just quoted.

Consider, also, that nearly all societies with slavery managed to abolish the evil institution, at about the same time as the American Civil War commenced, without the immense loss of life and blood, presumably spent so as to abolish slavery. The war, then, seems to have been an anomaly in the history of abolition. Its enormous costs was, moreover, enough to have paid every master for all his slaves and made it possible to get rid of the system without any shed of blood whatsoever.

What about the issues of secession and economic protectionism, what role did they have in producing the war between the states? Broadly speaking it seems that various unfair national economic policies, favoring Northerners and imposed on Southerners, prompted the secession movement, not primarily the resistance to freeing slaves. Not that the bulk of the South didn't believe in slavery or that many in its white population didn't try to justify it on the most discredited grounds of white supremacy. They did, but this wasn't at all sufficient to bring them to armed conflict. And given Lincoln's recorded views about slavery, this looks quite plausible — enough so, in my view, that it should generate some kind of public debate, not unlike that conducted about Jefferson's recorded attitude toward slavery in light of his slave holdings and possible secret fraternization of a slave woman.

Lincoln Cared Little for Freedom

Even if we assume that the union was needed to preserve America's status of a free country, there are problems with this because Lincoln did not appear to care much about the quintessentially American kind of freedom, namely, the right of every individual to his or her life, liberty and property. Nor did he care about the most important legal freedom in America, the one still cherished even by many politicians, academics, and journalists, namely, freedom of the press. Here is some clearly damning evidence of this, in President Abraham Lincoln's order to General John Dix, issued on May 18, 1864:

You will take possession by military force, of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce . . . and prohibit any further publication thereof . . . You are therefore commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison . . . The editors, proprietors and publishers of the aforementioned newspapers.

Lincoln had ordered, as well, the suspension of a free society's most cherished legal principle, the writ of habeas corpus — which is to say, the requirement that those arrested be charged, put to trial and be otherwise accorded vigorous legal protection against arbitrary treatment by officials of governments. In the case of Lincoln, suspending the writ basically gave him the powers of an absolute ruler who need not contend with critics, opponents and such and has full legal authority to carry out whatever policy he wanted to. Even in war, a free society cannot tolerate such a policy and no champion of such a society, it seems clear to me, would ever ask for the powers Lincoln wanted for himself and the government he administered.

No, I am not an expert on the matter of Lincoln and his loyalty to American ideas but I can tell, as any reasonable person can, that with these and dozens and dozens of other pieces of evidence at hand, the moral and political merits of Abraham Lincoln need to be widely debated, not swept under the rug. Nor should school children be shielded from this debate, just as they should not about Jefferson's ideas and conduct. Just as the issue of whether Jefferson's words in the Declaration express his true character and ideas is of the utmost historical importance, so the same is true with Lincoln. For, as another aspect of the puzzle, Lincoln also said many things that would appear to support just exactly what most Southerners wanted to do. As he said, in January of 1848, "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better." And there is, of course, the famous Gettysburg address the sentiments of which include the main principles of the Declaration.

So we seem to have here not a clean and simple Honest Abe at all, but a historical figure whose official representation, in our educational institutions and popular media, seems to conflict very seriously, once we look past the idolatry, with some very credible pieces of historical evidence. Isn't it time that the country abandon its silence on the subject of the true Abraham Lincoln? Isn't it time, also, to abandon the tactic, deployed, sadly, even by Professor Jaffa, of dismissing Lincoln critics as apologists for slavery, thus sparing oneself the trouble of coping with damning evidence?

---

Machan, who teaches at Chapman University in Orange, California, advises Freedom Communications, Inc., on public policy matters. His most recent book is Initiative — Human Agency and Society (Hoover Institution Press, 2000). His email address is Tibor_R._Machan@link.freedom.com.

[stand watie]

yep!

[Twodees]

To judge from Lincoln's actions of 13 years later, he seemed to have meant that anyone able to arrogate powers to himself in order to change his country's form of government by violent means was well within his rights to do so. Lincoln showed that he didn't give a tin-plated shit about the country or the people by his illegal prosecution of an undeclared war.

I've never understood why anyone who calls himself an American would worship at the temple of Lincoln. He was the very antithesis of an American President.

[Twodees]

Actually, none of those musings matter in the case of ex Parte Merryman. It is a circuit court decision which was never overturned on review. That makes it unshakable case law. Amusing, isn't it, how some people will revere case law such as some of Chase's bizarre rulings and ignore an opinion which is used as material in every course on constitutional law taught in this country, isn't it?

[Twodees]

It's just strict enough. As to the location among the articles, the first three articles are so determinative of their contents that they are referred to by the terms, "legislative, executive and judicial articles" by law professors. Ask one of your fellow professors whether this is true while you're still employed. I won't let your colleagues know you're inventing words here. ;-)

I don't see anything open ended about the first section of Article II. It's perfectly concise as most of the language in the document is. The obvious meaning is that the powers of the executive office are to be exercised by the President alone. Look at section one in either of these Articles: Article I, Section 1- All Legislative powers herein granted shal be vested in a congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.

Article III, Section 1- The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in a Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

There's nothing open ended about any of these sections. Of course, you have nothing to actually say about them, this simply struck you as you were fumbling through a document unfamiliar to you.

Strict construction of the line which is bothering you is that the President has oversight power of his department's enforcement agency(ies). This wouldn't be nearly as massive a job if congress saw fit to legislate only in areas where they have a grant of power to legislate.

[Twodees]

So, you can't summon anything you would recognize yourself as suitable credentials for an opinion and you have to ascribe your position to Dr. Keyes. That's comical. When a President breaks all precedent and exercises a power reserved up until that time to another branch, and he charges an underling with shutting up dissenters to his actions, he's merely faithfully doing the bare minimum necessary to fulfill his duties. Now, that's hilarious. Where else was Lincoln so dutiful to his oath? What part of his oath required him to spend money,call out the militia and suspend habeus corpus himself while delaying calling Congress into session for over three months?

Why are we supposed to be shocked at Taney's words? they're simply presented and rational. We should be shocked at Lincoln's insane actions, which are being presented to students today as normal, reasonable procedure for a President. Taney's opinion carries more weight than anything your unemployed, wannabe perrenial candidate pal has to say no matter how many degrees he has. Taney's decision has never been overturned on appeal, which makes it.....what? Ask a law professor.

You said that the Supreme Court had no authority to tell the President what to do. You said it in answer to a post in which the Merryman decision was being discussed as a reining in of Lincoln's power drunken spree. Make whatever excuse you like now, it was clear to anyone reading that you thought Merryman was a Supreme Court decision. Had you known differently, your opinion, based on Dr. Keyes' "coequal powers" doctrine would have been the same but you could have said simply, "the judiciary can't tell the President what to do". That would be wrong as well, though. Anytime a court issues a ruling concerning the actions of a sitting President, that court is "telling the President what to do" in a sense. A President can ignore the ruling of a court, as Clinton and Lincoln have done, or he may spin it to his advantage as Clinton and Lincoln have done.

Now, whatever could have made you think that I'm provoked by you? I was just about to invite you over for coffee.

[TexasKamaAina]

"The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. " There was no rebellion. The Southern states peacefully left a voluntary union. There was no invasion, except for the Northern invasion of the South and hence, there was no risk to public safety except, again, in the South.

[davidjquackenbush]

Belittling laughter at the opinons of fellow citizens engaging in political discussion is corrosive of self-government. Attribution of literally the worst of motives to a leader whose statesmanship has edified millions is corrosive of self-government. We all do such things too much - you do it beyond the point that makes it worthwhile to discuss these matters with you. Lincoln, me, whoever you talk to, is contemptible to you.

If it will spare you the need to compose another dismissive remark, please feel free to assume that I say these things only because of the unanswerable rigor of your careful and measured comments to me.

[weikel]

Leaving is rebbellion two mutually hostile neighbors would be created.

[humbletheFiend]

Actually, none of those musings matter in the case of ex Parte Merryman.

Actually, a couple of additional musings that I didn't mention in that post might also be worthy of consideration. First, to what extent should a judge consider the existence of a growing climate of chaos and civil disorder when he is deciding whether or not to substitute his own judgment regarding the interpretation of the Constitution for the judgment of the President given that it is primarily a function of the Executive Branch to see that the laws be faithfully executed? Second, and I think that this was probably a critical factor to Taney, shouldn't a judge be somewhat less deferential to the Chief Executive's interpretation of a Constitutional provision when, as in this case, the Chief Executive's construction directly results in the imposition of a limitation on the power of the judicial branch to perform its constitutional and statutory functions?

So, Twodees, what you need to do is to throw all of these factors into a big pot and stir them slowly and carefully.

Then you can arrive at your own opinion.

[weikel]

Actually the founders offered Washington the crown.

[Twodees]

You're attributing only the best motives to him, which is absurd as well. Why shouldn't I suspect the worst of Abe? He was a politician. Americans are free to revile politicians and politicians must grin and bear it. Abe wouldn't do that. He shut down newspapers and had thousands of people arrested and held without charges. That was his motive for suspending the writ.

I'm so sorry that you can't carry on. Grow a thicker skin or stick to holding forth at captive audiences in a classroom. You air your opinion here and it's subject to attack. Apparently, in order to maintain your position it's necessary to refuse to discuss it.

[Twodees]

Again, those musings can't color the legal weight of the decision which is really all that matters in weighing Lincoln's insane actions as evidenced by the reaction of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

I did come to my own opinion on this and I certainly didn't require the benefit of exposure to your imagination in order to do so. What makes you think that your musings are so original or profound as to be required for consideration before one forms an opinion? I've lived for 49 years blisfully unaware of your existence and without doing too badly while missing exposure to your ideas. Give me a little credit for independent thought, please.

[rdf]

I have given some thought to these "neo-reb" threads, and I have reached a decision.

Apologists for the CSA, Jeff Davis, Stephens, Calhoun, and co., are an insignificant fringe element in our politics.

The manner in which the discussion is carried on here by these apologists is unhelpful. There are a few exceptions, but on the whole, this is true.

Their "authorities," most notably Thomas DiLorenzo, are ridiculous and obvious frauds.

The only reason to participate in these discussions is for the edification of innocent lurkers.

Therefore, I will say no more on these threads, except in the brief moments when they are rational, or when an intervention now and then might help newcomers see how tendentious the apologists are.

Lincoln was right about the duty to apply the Principles of the Declaration to the events of ones own times, and I intend to do that, and leave the lovers of the "lost cause" to recall the long gone days.

Best wishes to all,

Richard Ferrier,
President, Declaration Foundation

[humbletheFiend]

Give me a little credit for independent thought, please.

I have no doubt about your independence of thought. In fact, were your thoughts not independent, I doubt that they could be so unique.

I assure you, Twodees, I have a great deal of respect for your independence of thought.

[davidjquackenbush]

You're attributing only the best motives to him, which is absurd as well. Why shouldn't I suspect the worst of Abe? He was a politician. Americans are free to revile politicians and politicians must grin and bear it. Abe wouldn't do that. He shut down newspapers and had thousands of people arrested and held without charges. That was his motive for suspending the writ.

I attribute to Lincoln, and to all my fellow citizens, the motives which they report to me as being their motives, until I have evidence to the contrary. I think that is the basic pre-supposition that makes free civic life possible. Your whole understanding seems to be based on the presumption that those who disagree with you are dishonest. That simple presumption destroys the possibility of self-government, if it is systemic. American citizens have a duty to attempt to understand the position of those they are talking to, to presume good faith in their motives until they see evidence otherwise.

It seems to me that one criterion to begin to suspect bad will is when a position is maintained in contempt for evidence. I don't think that you do that, but DiLorenzo does. He quotes texts in a way that is either dishonest or fundamentally stupid. I don't think he is fundamentally stupid, so I think he is dishonest.

You, on the other hand, usually take some at least verbal account of the argument made against you. DiLorenzo does not do this. But having taken some notice of arguments against you, your fundamental reply is, to me at least, "that's self-evidently stupid." And then you give an argument on your own terms, with your own presuppositions, with utter confidence, and with the claim that I am ignorant, presumptuous, and of immature motive, woven in as part of your attempt to discredit my position. I detect no interest, on your part, in wishing to understand why someone might think the way I do, or act and think the way Lincoln acted and thought.

Again, I think that this means that you have already decided that I, and Lincoln, have simply bad motives. Why I would argue with someone who automatically interprets what I say as ill-intentioned and contemptible, I don't know. You can call it "thin skinned" if you wish. But it is actually simply the fact that if you are not going to interpret my words as attempts to say true things, however faulty, then I may as well speak English to a Chinese peasant.

On the writ, Neely's book is, as far as I know, the most complete and only systematic examination of the mass of particular cases of the suspension of the writ, martial law arrests, etc. He concludes that there is no significant evidence at all of partian motive in Lincoln's actions, and certainly no sign of an ambition to concentrate power.

[davidjquackenbush]

That's: He concludes that there is no significant evidence at all of partisan motive in Lincoln's actions, and certainly no sign of an ambition to concentrate power.

[Twodees]

If you indeed give everyone the benefit of the doubt about motives, then you will give the Confederacy a fair hearing. I have certainly made up my mind about Lincoln long ago and it's very hard for me to see how anyone who has examined the record can claim that Lincoln had no partisan motive for suspending the writ and no desire to concentrate power. All one needs to do is to examine what use was made of the suspension.

The primary and almost sole use of the suspension was to stifle dissent. Couple this with the assault on the press and you have a perfect picture of a man who has baldly grabbed power and abused it. I've never heard of "Neely", but if he claims that there is no evidence that Lincoln acted from partisan motive or from an ambition to concentrate power, then I want to see what evidence he examined. It sounds as though his conclusions came from examining Lincoln's speeches and letters. There's no evidence, other than Lincoln's own words, that he acted from any other motivation than pure ambition to consolidate all political power unto himself and to his party. That is very obvious even to me with the limited research I've been able to do.

Why do you worry whether I think your intentions are bad? Make your case, answering my comments or you're just feigning offense in order to stop the discussion. You and your pals all decided before you ever came online that the intentions of anyone who wants to criticise Lincoln are evil. That certainly doesn't stop us from arguing with you. Back out if you like. We'll keep the field long after you folks have been defeated. That's how the last campaign to deify Lincoln and demonize the Confederacy ended, you know.

[davidjquackenbush]

"The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties" Oxford University Press, 1991 Pulitzer Prize, 1992 from Amazon: 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.

[humbletheFiend]

I have given some thought to these "neo-reb" threads, and I have reached a decision.

I can relate to these folks.

My ancestors were members of a major clan in the West Highlands. As such, we were some of the very first to join Bonnie Prince Charlie (Stuart) and to pledge our support to his effort to oust George II and return the Stuarts to the throne that by Divine right belongs to them alone. In our eyes, the Treaty of Paris was no more legitimate than the pathetic pretender (George III) in whose name it was made. Thus, there is no "United States of America" and its supposed Constitution is nothing more than a treasonable fiction. The Stuarts have waived none of their Divine Rights or Privileges and the American colonies remain among their properties.