Posted on 04/29/2002 10:04:22 PM PDT by davidjquackenbush
What original research in particular impressed you with DiLorenzo's book?
Truth is a powerful enemy. I am sorry that it destroys your gods. Lincoln has become one of the gods of "Americanity".
When we, as a people, can substitute the real God for that of the Empire, we will become rightoures. Lincoln was an Emperor. He subverted freedom for the empire. When Southron, Christians can look upon the flag of the new Republic, with the same revulsion our ancestors saw it,as being the enemy of freedom, we stand a chance of independence.
After 24 years service in the US Marine Corps, I weep at the fact that I can not raise the US flag. Our nation has betrayed us. We no longer share the same ideals.
The North should have it's gun control, it's high taxes,it's centralised government. The North east and the west-coast should have Al Gore for President. They should have their "secure", centralised government.
After all, that's who they voted for...
Give us freedom. Let the South leave. Let us have our own nation. We don't buy the propaganda, "One nation"..."Indivisible"...etc.. We are tired of fighting ya'll's wars. My son will fight for the South, not for "America". I'am sorry, you can't have him.
Larry Salley
Citadel, Class of '77'
Officer of Marines, Retd
I didn't catch your answer to this: "What original research in particular impressed you with DiLorenzo's book?"
Richard F.
Cheers,
Richard F.
Having read the article of this thread plus the early responses to it by DiLorenzo's critics, I must conclude that it is primarily more of the same - petty griping about the interpretations of Basler and Neely.
I see that David Quackenbush partially responded to having been called on his bizarre assertion about a purported absence of Lincoln quotes in DiLorenzo's book. He does so by saying the counterexample offered by DiLorenzo was merely a header into a chapter. But that does not address the error of his previous assertion. I have pulled out my recently purchased copy of DiLorenzo's book and invite anyone to follow along.
- there is a 2 sentence quote of Lincoln on page 10.
- there is a lengthy 3 sentence quote of Lincoln on page 11.
- there are 2 near-complete sentence quotations of Lincoln found in the text of DiLorenzo's work on page 12. Shortly after that is the now-corrected siamese twins quote.
- there is another 2 sentence quote of Lincoln below it on page 12.
- there is a 1 sentence Lincoln quote on the crossover from page 12 to 13.
- there is are 2 sentece Lincoln quotes, plus about a dozen partial ones, on page 14.
- there is a 2 sentence Lincoln quote on page 15.
- there is a 1 sentence Lincoln quote plus serveral partial ones on page 17.
See what I'm getting at? And it continues like this in places all over the book. Contrary to Quackenbush's heavily emphasized assertion, there are several multi-sentence quotations of Lincoln himself. The one on pages 21-22 is a full six sentences long for that matter. So I think it is safe to say that Quackenbush's assertion was itself an error no less incorrect than the gravest of his own allegations against DiLorenzo.
Interesting. If I recall correctly, Lincoln used that particular line in order to refute what he characterized as an attempt by Douglas to portray him as a proponent of "social and political equality with the Negro"
It seems that Lincoln's quoting of Jefferson came as an attempt to signify the position was shared between the two. The quote very specifically advocates colonization, stating its endorsement for the "process of emancipation, and deportation, peaceably." Lincoln himself, throughout his career, repeatedly turned to colonization as a favored solution. He is on record stating that his own inclinations lend him to support that policy and is known to have undertaken efforts to pursue it during his presidency. It is therefore only reasonable to conclude that Lincoln was advocating this position.
What the cultists would really love would be to see all of DiLorenzo's books burned.
I repeat your words below:
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"I have pulled out my recently purchased copy of DiLorenzo's book and invite anyone to follow along.
- there is a 2 sentence quote of Lincoln on page 10.
- there is a lengthy 3 sentence quote of Lincoln on page 11.
- there are 2 near-complete sentence quotations of Lincoln found in the text of DiLorenzo's work on page 12. Shortly after that is the now-corrected siamese twins quote.
- there is another 2 sentence quote of Lincoln below it on page 12.
- there is a 1 sentence Lincoln quote on the crossover from page 12 to 13.
- there is are 2 sentence Lincoln quotes, plus about a dozen partial ones, on page 14.
- there is a 2 sentence Lincoln quote on page 15.
- there is a 1 sentence Lincoln quote plus serveral partial ones on page 17.
See what I'm getting at? And it continues like this in places all over the book. Contrary to Quackenbush's heavily emphasized assertion, there are several multi-sentence quotations of Lincoln himself. The one on pages 21-22 is a full six sentences long for that matter. So I think it is safe to say that Quackenbush's assertion was itself an error no less incorrect than the gravest of his own allegations against DiLorenzo."
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First, let me give you Q.'s exact words:
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"I will preface the fourth, and most striking instance of Dr. DiLorenzo's creative textual interpretations by noting that only in two chapters of the book, "Lincoln's Opposition to Racial Equality" and "Why Not Peaceful Emancipation?," does Dr. DiLorenzo quote so much as a full sentence of Abraham Lincoln's words, with the single exception of a sentence from the first inaugural.
This in itself is a fascinating demonstration of DiLorenzo's method of scholarship. The vast majority of a book entitled "The Real Lincoln" contains precisely one quoted sentence from Lincoln. But it is filled with extensive quotations from other historical figures, scholars, etc., and above all with Dr. DiLorenzo's confident narrative explaining to us how all these things reveal the real Lincoln. Lincoln himself, however, is muzzled."
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Now, this is substantially, but not perfectly, true. I find Epigrams from Lincoln at the heads of Chapters 4 and 5, and, at the start of Ch. 6, an order of Lincoln's to Gen. Dix, discussed here at length, BTW, and revealed to be grossly misleading as a proof text of his "dictatorial" tendencies.
Besides these, there is the single sentence Q. mentions, and one sentence from a letter, regarding Sumter, which Q. missed.
That's it, so far as I can see, from page 54 to page 279.
Recall what Q. had said, "Lincoln himself, however, is muzzled." And, "the vast majority ... contains ... one quoted sentence." I grant you that the actual number is two, not one, in the 225 pages. You may make of this what you will.
The epigrams are no part of the argument, misleading, and not sourced. No one should take them as an effort by Dilorenzo to let Lincoln speak for himself. I had rather not argue that here, for brevity's sake, but I will if need be.
Recall, too, that the book's title is, "The Real Lincoln."
The Real Lincoln distinguished secession from revolution. He wrote to Wallace that the tariff was not a lively issue, and that one should wait for its old opponents to see its merits before pressing the issue. He released the editors in NY when it became clear that they were only pawns of the subversive "Gold Hoax" plotters ... and those editors went on to revile him and work for the election of McClellan.
The Real Lincoln thought hard about the Constitution, which he loved, and he had, and gave, reasons for what he did and how he understood his duties to that Constitution. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps not. Perhaps a mixture, depending on the case.
But the Real Lincoln never appears to make his case in this awful book, and hence that case is never confronted. Throughout, but especially after page 54, DiLorenzo is the hanging judge in a Kangaroo court. And the accused is muzzled, just as Q. says.
This has become over long. I will respond to the claims that the distortions of Basler and Neeley are unimportant another time.
Regards,
Richard F.
And his initials are not L i n c o l n but instead
D i L o r e n z o.
But nevermind, the delusional tend to be only concerned with facts which support their delusions. . . their lives evidently lacking other, more constructive enterprises to focus on.
I had just finished working out a reply to your 6 points below when the thread was pulled. Let's see if I can do it again.
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Second, that particular link may be boiled down into the following.
1. Asserting upon simple self authority that Lincoln said "practically nothing" on economics during his rise to national power, and accordingly ruling DiLorenzo's economic theory of Lincoln as unsupported.
It is hard to prove a negative.
Q., and I, had done a search at the Basler site to see whether indeed Lincoln had said practically nothing on economics during this period, and I can tell you it is, in fact true. There were the two speeches you have posted, both of which were in fact more about slavery or secession than economics, and about 6-10 very diffident letters. That's it.
2. Disputing a characterization of the degree economics were present in his senate campaign debates made by DiLorenzo in another article.
This is no dispute; it's a fact. The debates, as McPherson says, contain nothing about economics, especially about "Whig Economics." Read them. And Dr. D. did not only say this in his article, it's on page 68 of his book. And it's false.
3. Disputing DiLorenzo's interpretation of a single one line Roy Basler quote.
Balser is a weighty authority. Dr. D. misrepresents him as saying Lincoln was insincere about slavery and uncaring about human equality. That's a falsehood. And it matters to the line of argument in the book.
4. Disputing DiLorenzo's interpretation of a single passage by Mark Neely.
Neeley is another important authority, and DiLorenzo garbles his words to say that Lincoln seethed against the Constitution. That, too, is false, and very material to Dr. D.'s argument.
5. The bizarre assertion that DiLorenzo quoted Lincoln himself only once in his book.
Discussed above.
6. Citing a single now-corrected error of context in one of DiLorenzo's quotes of Lincoln
Good. But it's not the only one. And it's inexcusable. I wasted some days last month trying to sort it out, since I felt right away that it didn't sound like Lincoln. Dr. D. says he thought it did sound like Lincoln. He has no ear for Lincoln because he does not understand him in the least. And he despises his Imaginary Lincoln.
The error, as you well know, consists in taking words that Lincoln vehemently rejects, from a VA clergyman, in the Clay Eulogy of 1852, as Lincoln's own. [pg 12] They are footnoted as from the 1858 debates. And on pages 13-15, Dr. D. quotes other passages from the Clay Eulogy, including texts immediately next to the VA clergyman text. That is either near criminal negligence, or lying.
Dr. D. also has the DoI meaning by equality, the "equality of the people of the several states." [pg 86] Either that means NC is equal to NY, etc., or it means that Jefferson had in mind only the people [citizens?] of the 13 colonies, soon to be states. So much for "ALL MEN are created equal."
He has Lincoln, in the Illinois Legislature, urging some racist legislation, in 1857. That's false. Lincoln was not in the legislature then.
This grows tiresome.
Let me make a suggestion. Free yourself from this sophist, and make your own case, as you have dne before. There is no need for your cause to be poisoned by a fraud or a fool.
Regards,
Richard F.
I find I can repost this.
Dear Dawg,
I will provide the first of these links for you, though I doubt it will make any difference.
DiLorenzo's many errors of fact and his tendentious manner of interpretation have been documented here at length for 3 months, with little acknowledgment by defenders of the "lost cause." There is a current thread by a well-read Civil War expert that adds half a dozen or more instances of Dr. D.'s folly, and I can give a link to that, too, if it would prove helpful.
A General Response to DiLorenzo's Thesis and two more important errors
All of these errors concern "evidence" of grave importance to DiLorenzo's principal points, namely, that Lincoln was a "racist," and that he cared little or not at all about human equality, but was driven by an econmic agenda in 1854-60 and perhaps beyond then.
I cannot spend the whole day finding and pasting in speeches and other material to prove to the blind how wrong they are, but I can recommend reading the key speeches: the Peoria Speech, which Lincoln is quoting extensively in the August 21st Debate ... and which DiLorenzo misquotes ... the Hartford and Pittsburg Speeches, which GOPcapitalist shamelessly selects from to prove a conclusion opposite to the general tenor of both speeches, and the two letters to Wallace, which essentially indicate that Lincoln has no intention of pushing the tariff question, since public opinion was against that of the "Old Whigs." All these things, and much more, may be found at the complete Lincoln site [Basler's collection, searchable] on the net.
That something had to be done with the tariff to raise funds for a govenment recovering from a depression is a not very astonishing positiion for any politician to hold in 1859-60, and in fact the bill was passed, with Democrat support, and signed by Pres. Buchanan just before Lincoln took office.
Returning to DiLorenzo, other remarkable errors include his snipping a quote to make Lincoln in favor of "any legislation for reclaiming of their fugitives." [pg. 13, see footnote 11] having Lincoln address Illinois Legislators, as a member in 1857, when Lincoln was not in the legislature, [pg. 18] and making the preposterous claim that "[W]hen it [the Declaration] mentions equality, it is equality of the people of the several states." [pg 86] This vaguely put assertion either means that Jefferson boldly declared that it was self-evident that New York was equal to North Carolina, or that the people [citizens?] of all of the 13 colonies were equal, each to each, not what all sensible men take Jefferson to have meant, "ALL MEN are created equal."
Since I will not be able to spend much more time here today, let me add one last general point bearing on this book and the whole debate over secession. DiLorenzo and many of his crowd never even consider the possibility of a distinction between legal secession and revolution, with an appeal to "the laws of nature and of nature's God."
Now, even if that distinction is ill-made, which I admantly deny, it was operative the minds of Lincoln, J.Q. Adams, Madison, and many, many other American Statesmen. Failure even to notice the distinction makes DiLorenzo misrepresent these men, espcially Adams and Madison.
There, that's it for now. This was probably too long, but I've had it with the device of folks on one thread saying, OK, he made a little mistake. What about "x,y,z" which you haven't spoken to? We have spoken to these things, here, at WND, at the Declaration Foundation Forum, and elsewhere. We have proved the book is tendentious, sloppy, and essentially false.
Maybe now good people can read a scholarly but accessible book like William Miller's Lincoln's virtues, and think about his accurate and not at all one-sided presentation of the questions Lincoln's statesmanship poses.
Best to you,
Richard F.
You wrote:
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This [DiLorenzo's latest] is really astonishingly and pathetically dishonest. It's remarkable. In the passage I quoted, he was making fun of the idea of racial equality.
Well the first thing is that DiLorenzo says the quote he mangles was in the first Lincoln Douglas Debate. But it wasn't. It was in the eulogy of Clay. One of the things we nailed DiLorenzo and his 60 books on was that he didn't know the source of what he was quoting.
Then Lincoln was simply not "making fun of the idea of racial equality" in that speech. He characterized the passage, the letter to a newspaper of someone who WAS making fun of the idea of racial equality as "extraordinary language" which sounded "strangely in republican America" and was not heard in the fresher days of the Republic."
So At the very kindest, DiLorenzo persists in misconstruing a passage easily understood by people with far fewer than 60 books on LIncoln in their shelves -- but who have actually read the books instead of mining them for useful quotes.
It turned out that the context of this quote, among so many making essentially the same point, had Lincoln attributing the view to someone else.
Yes, he attributed it to someone else -- to a letter published in a Saint Louis, MO newspaper -- with language which made it clear that he disavowed the sentiment.
Further Dilorenzo makes it sound like this was the only error in the book. It's not, it's just one of the juiciest -- one that shows how poorly he checks his stuff before he publishes it. A college kid who made that kind of error, if caught, would be excoriated. But DiLorenzo, having graduated from college, no longer has the time or the inclination to find out what he's quoting and whether his quotes are accurate. It's hard to believe.
And then, when caught out, he deceives the von mises interviewer by a complete mischaracterization of the error.
You guys debate Lincoln all you want. But there can be no serious debate on whether DiLorenzo cares about the truth. He doesn't, at least not in his book nor in his defense of it. It makes me want to keep my kid home from college if this is what the professors are purveying in the place of knowledge or research.
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Courtesy of rdf.
Cheers,
Richard --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In other words, arbitrarily exclude the meat of the book and you are left with a book absent of the very thing you excluded. Talk about convenience.
Now, this is substantially, but not perfectly, true.
It is far from substantially true. The central statement of that assertion is, arbitrarily excluding dozens upon dozens of Lincoln quotes by exempting certain chapters, "The vast majority of a book entitled "The Real Lincoln" contains precisely one quoted sentence from Lincoln." As you yourself conceded, this is not the case. Lincoln's quotes occur elsewhere in more than one case.
So, instead of conceding the error, you rush to his defense asserting that it may not have been perfectly true, but it was substantially true. This is particularly interesting because it demonstrates your granting of a significantly greater ammount of fudge room to an ally than you ever allowed to DiLorenzo, even though your ally's error was at least as significant as those you allege of DiLorenzo.
The epigrams are no part of the argument, misleading, and not sourced.
I would beg to differ, noting that each is printed under an applicable heading. You yourself even conceded just sentences prior that the quoted order to Dix was offered as "a proof text of his [Lincoln's] "dictatorial" tendencies." Now you say it wasn't any part of the argument. Are you now changing your mind?
No one should take them as an effort by Dilorenzo to let Lincoln speak for himself.
Then what about the extensive quotation of Lincoln contained throughout the chapters that were conveniently exempted from consideration? It seems to me that, in places where DiLorenzo allowed Lincoln "to speak" in vollume, Quackenbush has conveniently exempted them out of his statement in order that he may find that they are not there. But sure enough, when he does that it turns out that they are still there in other chapters and he's missed them!
In short, the entire argument that Lincoln was "muzzled" is a self constructed charade designed to remove Lincoln's extensive presence where it appears most frequently and then proclaim that presence to have dissappeared. But as with any poorly constructed charade, it turns out, sure enough, that the remainder was understated. Further, it turns out that his error alone is as grave as many of the allegations you have made against DiLorenzo, yet rather than apply the same standard of judgment to an ally, you let the whole thing slip declaring it imperfect but substantially true.
The Real Lincoln distinguished secession from revolution. He wrote to Wallace that the tariff was not a lively issue
Yes, in 1859 when he did not want it to arise as a campaign battle. In that same letter, he also proclaimed his support of the tariff to have been as strong as ever and expressed his anticipation that it would be made into a reality in the near future. He also told an audience not three weeks before his inauguration that, in the next legislative session, "no subject should engage your representatives more closely than that of a tariff."
and that one should wait for its old opponents to see its merits before pressing the issue.
You are misinterpreting his statement. The actual quote from the letter was "my general impression is, that the necessity for a protective tariff will, ere long, force it's old opponents to take it up; and then it's old friends can join in, and establish it on a more firm and durable basis." Simply put, he thought himself to have been right on the tariff issue and thought that the practice of its absence would prove that they needed to reinstate it. He was not waiting in order that he may show tariff opponents its merits. He was waiting because he thought in short time, the political policy of a high tariff's absence would create the circumstances that presented an opportunity to call for a tariff.
You misconstrue everything, both from me and Q. and from Lincoln.
Over 200 pages of this misbegotten book give Lincoln essentially no voice.
The parts that do quote him misquote him egregiously.
The author is a revisionist, and if he wants a hearing at all, he should take note of the contrary position. He does not.
"Eyes he has, but sees not. Ears, but hears not."
Those who support him are like him.
I see I wasted my time in giving you reasons.
That grieves me.
Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever!
Richard F.
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