Was Lincoln a Tyrant?

LewRockwell.com ^ | April 29, 2002 | Thomas DiLorenzo

[davidjquackenbush]

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Was Lincoln a Tyrant? by Thomas J. DiLorenzo In a recent WorldNetDaily article, “Examining ‘Evidence’ of Lincoln’s Tyranny (April 23),” David Quackenbush accuses me of misreading several statements by the prominent historians Roy Basler and Mark Neely in my book, The Real Lincoln:  A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War.   With regard to Basler, I quote him in Abraham Lincoln:  His Speeches and Writings, as suggesting that on the issue of slavery, post 1854, Lincoln’s  “words lacked effectiveness.”  Quackenbush says he was not referring to Lincoln’s comments on slavery here, but other things.   I read him differently. What Basler said was that, yes, Lincoln used eloquent language with regard to human equality and “respecting the Negro as a human being,” but he offered no concrete proposals other than the odious colonization idea of his political idol, Henry Clay.  As Basler wrote, “The truth is that Lincoln had no solution to the problem of slavery [as of 1857] except the colonization idea which he inherited from Henry Clay.”  In the next sentence he mentions Lincoln’s eloquent natural rights language, then in the next sentence after that, he makes the “lacking in effectiveness” comment.  What I believe Basler is saying here is that because Lincoln’s actions did not match his impressive rhetoric, his words did indeed lack effectiveness.  As Robert Johannsen, author of Lincoln, the South, and Slavery put it, Lincoln’s position on slavery was identical to Clay’s:  “opposition to slavery in principle, toleration of it in practice, and a vigorous hostility toward the abolition movement” (emphasis added).   Regardless of what Basler said, I take the position that Lincoln’s sincerity can certainly be questioned in this regard.  His words did lack effectiveness on the issue of slavery because he contradicted himself so often.  Indeed, one of his most famous defenders, Harry Jaffa, has long maintained that Honest Abe was a prolific liar when he was making numerous racist and white supremacist remarks.   He was lying, says Jaffa, just to get himself elected.   In The Lincoln Enigma Gabor Boritt even goes so far in defending Lincoln’s deportation/colonization proposals to say, “This is how honest people lie.”  Well, not exactly.  Truly honest people do not lie.  The problem with this argument, Joe Sobran has pointed out, is that Lincoln made these kinds of ugly comments even when he was not running for political office.  He did this, I believe, because he believed in these things. Basler was certainly aware of Lincoln’s voluminous statements in opposition to racial equality.  He denounced “equality between the white and black races” in his August 21, 1858 debate with Stephen Douglas; stated in his 1852 eulogy to Henry Clay that as monstrous as slavery was, eliminating it would supposedly produce “a greater evil, even to the cause of human liberty itself;” and in his February 27, 1860 Cooper Union speech advocated deporting black people so that “their places be . . . filled up by free white laborers.”  In fact, Lincoln clung to the colonization/deportation idea for the rest of his life.  There are many other similar statements.   Thus, it is not at all a stretch to conclude that Basler’s comment that Lincoln’s words “lacked effectiveness” could be interpreted as that he was insincere.  It also seems to me that Johannsen is right when he further states that “Nearly all of [Lincoln’s] public statements on the slavery question prior to his election as president were delivered with political intent and for political effect.”  As David Donald wrote of Lincoln in Lincoln Reconsidered, “politics was his life.”  In my book I do not rely on Basler alone, but any means, to make my point that Lincoln’s devotion to racial equality was dubious, at best. Quackenbush apparently believes it is a sign of sincerity for Lincoln to have denounced slavery in one sentence, and then in the next sentence to denounce the abolition of slavery as being even more harmful to human liberty.  (I apparently misread the statement Lincoln once made about “Siamese twins” by relying on a secondary source that got it wrong and will change it if there is a third printing). Quackenbush takes much out of context and relies exclusively on Lincoln’s own arguments in order to paint as bleak a picture of my book as possible.  For example, in my book I quote Mark Neely as saying that Lincoln exhibited a “gruff and belittling impatience” over constitutional arguments that had stood in the way of his cherished mercantilist economic agenda (protectionist tariffs, corporate welfare, and a federal monopolization of the money supply) for decades.  Quackenbush takes me to task for allegedly implying that Neely wrote that Lincoln opposed the Constitution and not just constitutional arguments. But I argue at great length in the book that Lincoln did resent the Constitution as well as the constitutional arguments that were made by myriad American statesmen, beginning with Jefferson.  In fact, this quotation of Neely comes at the end of the chapter entitled “Was Lincoln a Dictator,” in which I recount the trashing of the Constitution by Lincoln as discussed in such books as James Randall’s Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln, Dean Sprague’s Freedom Under Lincoln, and Neely’s Fate of Liberty.   Lincoln’s behavior, more than his political speeches, demonstrated that he had little regard for the Constitution when it stood in the way of his political ambitions. One difference between how I present this material and how these others authors present it is that I do not spend most of my time making excuses and bending over backwards to concoct “rationales” for Lincoln’s behavior.  I just present the material.  The back cover of Neely’s book, for example, states that thanks to the book, “Lincoln emerges . . . with his legendary statesmanship intact.”  Neely won a Pulitzer Prize for supposedly pulling Lincoln’s fanny out of the fire with regard to his demolition of civil liberties in the North during the war. Quackenbush dismisses the historical, constitutional arguments opposed to Lincoln’s mercantilist economic agenda, as Lincoln himself sometimes did,  as “partisan zealotry.”  Earlier in the book I quote James Madison, the father of the Constitution, as vetoing an “internal improvements” bill sponsored by Henry Clay on the grounds that “it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised in the bill is among the enumerated powers” of the Constitution.  Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, and John Tyler made similar statements.  These were more than partisan arguments by political hacks and zealots.  The father of the Constitution himself, Madison, believed the corporate welfare subsidies that  Lincoln would later champion were unconstitutional.  Add to this Lincoln’s extraordinary disregard for the Constitution during his entire administration, and it seems absurd for Quackenbush or anyone else to portray him as a champion of the Constitution who was pestered by “political zealots.”  Among Lincoln’s unconstitutional acts were launching an invasion without the consent of Congress, blockading Southern ports before formally declaring war, unilaterally suspending the writ of habeas corpus and arresting and imprisoning thousands of Northern citizens without a warrant, censoring telegraph communications, confiscating private property, including firearms, and effectively gutting the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.  Even quite worshipful Lincoln biographers and historians called him a “dictator.”  In his book, Constitutional Dictatorship, Clinton Rossiter devoted an entire chapter to Lincoln and calls him a “great dictator” and a “true democrat,” two phrases that are not normally associated with each other.  “Lincoln’s amazing disregard for the . . . Constitution was considered by nobody as legal,” said Rossiter.  Yet Quackenbush throws a fit because I dare to question Lincoln’s devotion to constitutional liberty. Quackenbush continues to take my statements out of context when commenting on the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and he refuses to admit that Lincoln did in fact lament the demise of the Bank of the United Stated during the debates.  His earlier claim that there was not a single word said during the Lincoln-Douglas debates about economic policy is simply untrue.  But the larger context is that even though most of the discussion during the debates centered on such issues as the extension of slavery into the new territories, they were really a manifestation of the old debate between the advocates of centralized government (Hamilton, Clay, Webster, Lincoln) and of decentralized government and states’ rights (Jefferson, Jackson, Tyler, Calhoun, Douglas).  At the time of the debates Lincoln had spent about a quarter of a century laboring in the trenches of the Whig and Republican Parties, primarily on behalf of the so-called “American System” of protectionist tariffs, tax subsidies to corporations, and centralized banking.  When the Whig Party collapsed Lincoln assured Illinois voters that there was no essential difference between he two parties.  This is what he and the Whigs and Republicans wanted a centralized government for.  As Basler said, at the time he had no concrete solution to the slavery issue other than to propose sending black people back to Africa, Haiti, or Central America.  He did, however, have a long record of advocating the programs of the “American System” and implementing a financially disastrous $10 million “internal improvements” boondoggle in Illinois in the late 1830s when he was an influential member of  the state legislature.  Lincoln spent his 25-year off-and-on political career prior to 1857 championing the Whig project of centralized government that would engage in a kind of economic central planning.  When the extension of slavery became the overriding issue of the day he continued to hold the centralizer’s position.  And as soon as he took office, he and the Republican party enacted what James McPherson called a “blizzard of legislation” that finally achieved the “American System,” complete with federal railroad subsidies, a tripling of the average tariff rate that would remain that high or higher long after the war ended, and centralized banking with the National Currency and Legal Tender Acts.  It is in this sense that the Lincoln-Douglas debates really did have important economic ramifications.  Quackenbush complains that I do not quote Lincoln enough.  He falsely states that there’s only one Lincoln quote in the entire book, which is simply bizarre.  On page 85 alone I quote Lincoln the secessionist, speaking on January 12, 1848 (“The War with Mexico:  Speech in the United States House of Representatives”):  “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.  This is a most valuable, a most sacred right --a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.  Nor is the right confined to cases I which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it.  Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”  That’s four sentences, by my count, and there are plenty of other Lincoln quotes in my book, contrary to Quackenbush’s kooky assertion. But he has a point:  I chose to focus in my book more on Lincoln’s actions than his words.  After all, even Bill Clinton would look like a brilliant statesman if he were judged exclusively by his pleasant-sounding speeches, many of which were written by the likes of James Carville and Paul Begala.  Yet, this is how many Lincoln scholars seem to do their work, even writing entire books around single short speeches while ignoring much of Lincoln’s actual behavior and policies. I also stand by my argument that Lincoln was essentially the anti-Jefferson in many ways, including his repudiation of the principle in the Declaration of Independence that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.  I don’t see how this can even be debatable.  The Whigs were always the anti-Jeffersonians who battled with the political heirs of Jefferson, such as Andrew Jackson and John Tyler.  Lincoln was solidly in this tradition, even though he often quoted Jefferson for political effect.  He also quoted Scripture a lot even though, as Joe Sobran has pointed out, he never could bring himself to become a believer. In this regard I believe the Gettysburg Address was mostly sophistry.  As H.L. Mencken once wrote, “it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense.”   It was the Union soldiers in the battle, he wrote, who “actually fought against self determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.”  Regardless of what one believes was the main cause of the war, it is indeed true that the Confederates no longer consented to being governed by Washington, D.C. and Lincoln waged a war to deny them that right. It’s interesting that even though the title of Quackenbush’s article had to do with “Evidence of Lincoln’s Tyranny,” in fourteen pages he does not say a single word about the voluminous evidence that I do present, based on widely-published and easily-accessible materials, of Lincoln’s tyrannical behavior in trashing the Constitution and waging war on civilians in violation of international law and codes of morality.  Instead, he focuses on accusations of misplaced quotation marks, footnotes out of order, or misinterpretations of a few quotations.  April 27, 2002 Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is the author of the LRC #1 bestseller, 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 Thomas DiLorenzo Archives LRC needs your support. Please donate.

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[GOPcapitalist]

Would you care to read, and think about, the excerpt from our book, or Madison's letter to Webster?

Gladly. But keep in mind that your posting of either need not necessitate that I agree with your conclusions. Now, would you care to discuss either? And if so, what would you like to discuss about them? I'll let you pick where we start.

You ask for more fundamental objections to Dr. D., besides those that show he is careless or sloppy or a fraud. Well, I've done it, more than once. What about the secession/revolution distinction?

What about it? I've been waiting for you to develop your position on this one more completely as it specifically applies to DiLorenzo. You assert that it is "fundamental" yet "ignored" by DiLorenzo, but do not move beyond that. Do so and I'll be happy to discuss it with you.

You have Madison's own words on it. Was he senile or dreaming or out to lunch ... or just having a bad day?

That I do, and I would counter with Alexis de Tocqueville's words on the issue. The very nature of the union's formation governs in consequence its operation, and among those consequences is the union's divisibility:

"However strong a government may be, it cannot easily escape from the consequences of a principle which it has once admitted as the foundation of its constitution. The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the states; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their sovereignty, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the states chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so, and the Federal government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly, either by force or by right. In order to enable the Federal government easily to conquer the resistance that may be offered to it by any of its subjects, it would be necessary that one or more of them should be specially interested in the existence of the Union, as has frequently been the case in the history of confederations. If it be supposed that among the states that are united by the federal tie there are some which exclusively enjoy the principal advantages of union, or whose prosperity entirely depends on the duration of that union, it is unquestionable that they will always be ready to support the central government in enforcing the obedience of the others. But the government would then be exerting a force not derived from itself, but from a principle contrary to its nature."

And how can you excuse Dr. D.'s ignoring the issue?

Make your case against him first - then we'll discuss.

As to the debates, McPherson, and Dr. D., I'd love to put the question to a jury of our peers. Your side would not pass the giggle test.

Nor would yours. While DiLorenzo overstates in his assertion, McPherson asserts a tangable falsehood as truth and does so specifically.

Sure, go ahead and try to persuade any literate person that the debates show Lincoln, or even Douglas, pressing an economic agenda, or even just trying to revive the bank.

Why should I need to if I have already acknowledged that the issue was not the major dispute of the debates in the first place? I am simply noting that it is mentioned by Lincoln, a fact that contradicts McPherson's statement that "not a word" was said.

Then try to sell folks a bridge in New York!

Thanks but no thanks. I think I'll leave that aspect of real estate peddling to you. And perhaps as a bonus, you could even throw in a free paperback copy of "Battle Cry of Freedom" if they call within the next 30 minutes.

I think I'm done on that issue,

Good! You should be.

and ready to be serious about really disputable matters.

I anticipate your comments then.

There is, indeed, a case for the CSA.

I will agree.

But it is not made by Dr. D.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. In light of reading his book, I do have some thoughts on this. But again, I am waiting for somebody to take up the issue. You seem to express intentions of doing so, and I hope they are authentic. So again I anticipate your comments.

[GOPcapitalist]

The last clause of Resolution 6. authorizing an exertion of the force of the whole agst. a delinquent State came next into consideration.

Ask yourself what this refers to.

It is a lighter version of what Tocqueville discussed. To move against a state is to use a force contrary to the very nature upon which the government itself was created. If this occurs, that government in reality no longer exists in its valid form - it has violated itself, making departure from it possible.

I further think you are misreading the concept of secession itself, at least as DiLorenzo handles it and most confederates view it. A line can be drawn between what is secession and revolution, but IMHO you take that line too far and spread them beyond what is really meant by the concept. Secession properly functions as a matter of formalization of the process described by Tocqueville and others before him. That is what I gather DiLorenzo's view to be as well.

Then have a nice big glass of Kentucky Bourbon

A southern drink, no doubt. Did you catch this article in weekly standard a few weeks ago?

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/326jkmfq.asp

and try to love "Publius," and to reject Calhoun.

One needs not make a blanket rejection of Calhoun's input if he undertakes an effort to understand it. I am not all that sure you have made this effort and, of course, invite you to do so.

[rdf]

I'll let you pick where we start.

Start here.

**********

As we read the Peoria speech today, one element jars our sensibilities: Lincoln does not take a stand for full political and social equality of the races. Some of the abolitionists of his day, especially the Quakers and other religious abolitionists, did. The 1854 laws of Maine set up in almost all respects what we would recognize today as equal civil rights, including jury duty and voting rights. But Maine was almost alone. Illinois’ laws did not allow blacks to vote or serve on juries, and Illinois was typical of the free states.

In Peoria, Lincoln said this: “Let it not be said that I am contending for the establishment of political and social equality between the whites and blacks. I have already said the contrary.” Was this statesmanlike too, or was it either weak or unwise, or even unjust?

We think Lincoln’s position in the Peoria speech can be vindicated, and that it can be reconciled with his support for expanded civil rights towards the end of the Civil War, if two things are kept in mind. First, as Lincoln himself said in 1859, “In this country, public opinion is everything.” Second, that the knowledge of the statesman is prudence, or practical wisdom, which consists in knowing how to move towards moral goals by practicable steps, not in “the immoderate pursuit of moral perfection” which, in political life, “will more often lead to misery and terror than to justice and happiness,” as Thomas G. West puts it in his book on the founding.

To take the first point first, is it not self-evident that in a republic, where the citizens are governed by their consent, their opinion will be the court of last resort, the final arbiter of all disputes? That does not mean that those opinions will never change, or that it will not be the duty of a good man and especially of a statesman to mold them for the better. But a public man will ignore them at his peril. Lincoln turns this weapon back on Douglas in the Peoria speech, when he tells him that he will never be able to suppress the voice of the people crying out that slavery is unjust: “...the great mass of mankind...consider slavery a great moral wrong; and their feeling against it, is not evanescent, but eternal. It lies at the very foundation of their sense of justice; and it cannot be trifled with—It is a great and durable element of popular action, and I think, no statesman can safely disregard it.” Sir Francis Bacon wrote long ago that, “Nature, to be mastered, must be obeyed.” The saying is equally true of the nature of the physical body and of the body politic. Public opinion, the soul of the political body, was ailing in the days after the Nebraska Bill, and Douglas was prescribing as medicine what Lincoln thought poison. That the patient should also take up a regimen of vigorous exercise after his recovery was not and should not have been the first thing on the doctor’s list.

Lincoln never said that political equality between the races was wrong; the most complete expression of his early views on the matter came in the 1858 debates with Douglas, and he clothed them entirely in the language of feeling: “...[I said years ago {this is from the Peoria Speech} that] my own feelings would not admit a social and political equality between the black and white races, and that even if my own feelings would admit of it, I still knew that the public sentiment of the country would not, and that such a thing was an utter impossibility, or substantially that.” And again, in the same debate, “I agree with Judge Douglas that he [the Negro] is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color— perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments; but in the right to eat the bread without the leave of any body else which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every other man.”

It must be remembered that the young Lincoln had said in 1838 that our passions, our feelings, were to be the enemy of our freedom in the future, and that reason, “cold sober reason,” would be the friend of the principles of the Declaration. Only one feeling, an almost religious reverence for the founding ideals, would buttress that reason. It should also be pointed out that Lincoln said that he knew only that the feelings of his fellow citizens would not admit of equality. He was certain that there was an inequality of “color.” He did not say that he was certain of the infinitely more important inequality of “intellectual and moral endowments.” These he said, might be unequal... “perhaps.”

Many causes, including prominently the religious conviction that all men are brothers, conspired to change public opinion in the United States towards the end of the Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation, by altering the legal status of slaves and by encouraging them to flee their masters and seek refuge in the Union armies, had some effect . But the greatest source of the change was probably the testimony given in blood by the black soldiers who had served the Union. The number enlisted was reported by the President to Congress in January of 1864 to be over 100,000, and Lincoln and many others thought that without their services, the war could not have been won. To a complaining Northern politician, James C. Conkling, who objected to fighting to “free negroes,” Lincoln penned these memorable words: “...[when peace comes] it will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost. And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it.”

When a man will not fight to preserve his people and his principles, we call him a slave; when a slave does fight, we see in him a man. In antiquity, slaves who risked their lives to save their masters were often manumitted. They had proved their manhood. Lincoln wrote Conkling in the same letter, “If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive--even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.” It cannot, alas, be said that the promise was perfectly kept. It would take a century more after the abolition of slavery for a new exercise of Declaration statesmanship to establish political equality without regard to race in this country. But the start was made in the time of Lincoln’s stewardship.

Let us be blunt; if Lincoln had taken the full position of equal social and political rights, he would not have been electable to any statewide office in Illinois, neither in 1854, when he was drafted for U.S. Senate and nearly won, nor in 1858, when he and Douglas had their memorable debates. He would not have become president in 1860, nor would any member of his party who took such a stand. He accomplished the good that he could, always insisting on the fundamental principle that in the fullness of time would yield such results. To achieve this good, he had to rekindle a reverence for the Declaration. Let us look briefly at how he did that in the Peoria speech.

Word, words, words. “Mere words” men say, and yet it is by the power of words that we take common counsel and learn to govern ourselves. We are free because we are made in the image of the all-wise God, and we have a bit of His light in our minds, and by that bit we strive to live according to His laws, the “laws of nature, and of nature’s God.” Of Divine things, St. Paul writes, “But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear of him without a preacher?”

Lincoln preached in Peoria. He preached the political religion he had declared must be preached years ago in Springfield. Douglas and the doctrine of popular sovereignty were “giving up the OLD faith... ” Human equality and popular sovereignty were “as opposite as God and mammon...” Three times he calls the proposition that all men are created equal, the “ancient faith.” Of the Nebraska Bill he says, “It hath no relish of salvation in it.” He calls the Founders, “our revolutionary fathers,” and “the fathers of the republic,” stirring memories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He compares slavery to the fateful disobedience of Adam. He says: “Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust. Let us re-purify it. Let us turn and wash it white, in the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution.”

Lincoln was like a great preacher in more than his scriptural language and his vision that America was founded on the Declaration as a kind of covenant or original creed, the “ancient faith.” He endeavored to emulate the charity of great preaching, too, as when he admitted that “the Southern people” were “just what we would be in their situation,” and when he said that “I surely will not blame them...” He stressed that Thomas Jefferson, the ‘father Abraham’ of the American covenant was “a Virginian by birth...a slaveholder...” He opened his speech by announcing that he did not “propose to question the patriotism, or to assail the motives of any man, or class of men...He. added that he wished “to be no less than national in all the positions” he would take. When he had suggested that “...a gradual emancipation might be adopted...” He immediately added, “but for their tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the south.” Thus, to political faith, he added political charity.

The climax of the speech actually occurs about three-fourths in; after that point Lincoln anticipates some of the points he expects Douglas to make in his final hour’s response. The paragraph begins with “Our republican robe is soiled...” It ends with these words of salvation and hope, which we quote in full:

Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south--let all Americans--let all lovers of liberty everywhere--join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make and keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.

In the Lyceum speech, Lincoln had concluded by urging the statesmen of his day to take the materials supplied by reason and mold them into intelligence, morality, and reverence for the law. “Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’” At Peoria, he took his own advice, and became such a statesman.

*****

I look forward to your comments.

Cheers,

Richard F.

[rdf]

ping!

[rdf]

One needs not make a blanket rejection of Calhoun's input if he undertakes an effort to understand it. I am not all that sure you have made this effort and, of course, invite you to do so.

I have read and thought long about Calhoun, and I judge him, at the end of the day, to be a traitor to the Regime, and a cousin to the Serpent.

Thank God he and his kindred did not prevail!

Liberty and Union, One and Inseparable, now and forever!

Richard F.

[rdf]

Why should I have to face a disputed assertion that you yourself have failed to demonstrate despite multiple invitations for you to do so?

Oh, I don't know, unless it's fundamental, obvious, and everyone from Locke to Madison to J.Q. Adams to Lincoln is with me and against the CSA and that ignorant old racist, Jeff Davis.

Whatever, though.

If you want to shut your eyes and salute the "Bonnie Blue Flag," and its embrace of human slavery, go ahead.

Cheers,

Richard F.

[GOPcapitalist]

Oh, I don't know, unless it's fundamental, obvious, and everyone from Locke to Madison to J.Q. Adams to Lincoln is with me

Aside from the obvious dangers of claiming long gone historical figures as allies in your political arguments, you may wish to use greater scrutiny in developing your list.

As you are probably aware, I could care less for Lincoln, personally and politically. I take strong issue with his Clintonesque political maneuvering, his centralizing power grabs, and the fact that he sided with Mexican dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana on the matter of the Texas boarder dispute. He's all yours and I'm not going to stop you from embracing him...though you should not be surprised if you find me observing such an act of sillyness in great laughter.

And by all means, take Locke as your own as well. Follow him out to his philosophical ends and discover, albeit the hard way, what "wonders" in this world have been wrought by empiricism, which i'll gladly cede to you in good riddance as well.

John Quincy's an interesting and learned character, but IMHO too much of a boorish yankee to merit a place of equal stature along side his more colorful political associates during the same time period.

Madison's the only exception in that group you named, and that mostly out of respect for a complex individual with a political philosophy far more complex than anything you give him credit for. So have at it!

[GOPcapitalist]

Here's my initial take on it. I'll try and post more detail later when time permits.

First off, I do differ with your presentation of Lincoln significantly. You view him as a sort of principled pragmatist in troubled times. I view him as a skilled and I dare say slick player of politics who engaged in this profession right up there with the best, or depending upon how you view it, worst, of them. You view him as a savior of American constitutional government. I view him as the destroyer of American constitutional government.

Regarding your comments on his speeches, it seems to me that you are engaged in the process of "gilding" them. You do concede some of the flaws on racial issues held by Lincoln and debunk the popular myth of an abolitionist figure, but cast them as a matter of pragmatism in electability. I will agree - an open abolitionist could not have been elected at the time. But I don't think it was anywhere near the principled pragmatism model you appear to cast him in.

Rather, it was politics pure and simple. It was all about a politician fishing for an audience and for votes. As I have said earlier, I do believe Lincoln had a passive moral objection to slavery itself and from that he developed a political plank opposed to its extension, but beyond that he basically bent every which way if he thought it could get him something politically. The classic example is the Corwin amendment, which would have indisputably been an artificial extension on the life of slavery where it existed itself. Other such cases may be found in his speeches throughout the period between 1854 and 1861. Lincoln was skilled at tuning himself to his audience, from town to town, and did so to a noticeable degree. Stephen Douglas even called him on it during the debates and raked him over the coals on the issue.

As for saving "the union," I do believe I detect a strain of the Clairmoster argument going on. On that issue, I will again yield to Alexis de Tocqueville's comments. "The Union" was a borrowed name for a battle to preserve its physical continuation, and in the actions taken to preserve that continuation, the basis of self government upon which it hinges was violated, hence that union no longer legitimately existed.

I'll take this up in greater detail when time permits.

[GOPcapitalist]

Liberty and Union

The two are not intrinsicly tied, you know. The Union can and does violate liberty, hence the problems inherent to it.

One and Inseparable, now and forever!

It is a sad day when the president of the Declaration Society declares the nation established by that document to be immune from the very principles of its establishment and their inescapable consequences. I suppose we can all thank Lincoln

[Plummz]

More Lies and Sophistry

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

"[T]ariffs were in the service of free trade . . ."

~ Thomas L. Krannawitter This Orwellian absurdity – the statement that protectionist tariffs are good for free trade – defines the intellectual shallowness of the latest tirade against my book, The Real Lincoln, to come from the Claremont Institute. In a supposed "review" in the Spring 2002 Claremont Review of Books Thomas Krannawitter lies about the contents of my book, attacks straw-man arguments, and simply makes things up.

He claims, for example, that I say that Lincoln "did not care a whit about" slavery. This is a lie; these words do not appear in my book, nor does any similar statement. On page 13 I note how Lincoln used natural rights language to condemn slavery by calling it a "monstrous injustice," among other things.

Krannawitter amazingly claims that I do not produce "a shred of evidence" for my assertion that Lincoln and the Republican Party pursued an agenda of centralized government and the pursuit of empire." He obviously hasn’t read the book; in it I trace how Lincoln and the Republican Party inherited the political mantle of the Whigs, who themselves were the political heirs to the Hamiltonians, the party of centralized government power and the pursuit of empire. This is another lie that Krannawitter presents to his readers.

A third blatant lie in Krannawitter’s screed is his statement that in my book I claim that Lincoln "only wanted to talk about [the Dred Scott decision] as an avenue for championing the nationalization of money." What I actually say on page 68 is that: "Even when commenting on the Dred Scott decision on June 26, 1857, Lincoln apparently couldn’t resist once again criticizing Andrew Jackson’s refusal thirty years earlier to recharter the Bank of the United States . . ."

My point is the opposite of what Krannawitter says it is: Lincoln commented extensively on the decision, which had nothing to do with banking policy, but he also could not help but throw in another minor jab at Jackson for not rechartering the bank. Such things were always apparently on his mind.

Krannawitter also makes a big deal about a botched quote that was in the first printing of my book which I admitted in print as having been a mistake two months before his "review" appeared. It is dishonest of him to dwell on this point in full knowledge of the fact that I have acknowledged the mistake and have corrected it in the latest printing.

The quote had to do with Lincoln’s opposition to racial equality, which he enunciated on many occasions. Thus, the fact that I messed up that one quote in no way affects my argument. Lincoln was not nearly as devoted to equality as the Claremontistas would have us believe. Lincoln clearly stated in his August 21, 1858 Ottawa, Illinois debate with Stephen Douglas, for example, that:

I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary.

In the same debate Lincoln also stated that any notion that he was in favor of "perfect social and political equality with the Negro is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse." On the topic of emancipation, in the same speech, he said: "Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this . . . . We cannot, then, make them equals."

In his July 6, 1852 eulogy to Henry Clay Lincoln announced that in his opinion slavery could not be eradicated "without producing a greater evil, even to the cause of human liberty itself." And for his entire political career he advocated deporting black people out of the country, to Haiti, Central America, or Africa. "There is a moral fitness in the idea of returning to Africa her children," Lincoln said in the Clay Eulogy. Deportation would supposedly mean "the ultimate redemption of the African race," he continued, and in his December 1, 1862 Message to Congress, Lincoln said: "I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I strongly favor colonization."

For many years he was an active member of the American Colonization Society and in 1857 he urged the Illinois legislature to appropriate money to be used to deport the free blacks out of the state (see Eugene Berwanger, The Frontier Against Slavery, p. 4). Lincoln also supported the Illinois Black Codes, which deprived black people of any semblance of genuine citizenship.

As Joe Sobran has written, Lincoln’s position was that black people could be equal all right, as long as it wasn’t here in the U.S. Some champion of racial equality and natural rights. These are some of the reasons why Ebony magazine editor Lerone Bennett, Jr. so harshly denounces the "Lincoln Myth" in his book, Forced into Glory.

The Claremontistas and their fellow Straussian neocons go berserk whenever anyone brings these facts to light. Richard Ferrier, for example, recently labeled me a "delusional idiot" on the FreeRepublic website for stating that Lincoln opposed racial equality. To Ferrier and the Claremontistas, Lincoln’s statement that "I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races" means "I DO have the purpose of introducing political and social equality between the white and black races."

To Ferrier and Krannawitter, Lincoln’s statement that "we cannot, then, make them equals" means "We CAN, then, make them equals." You be the judge of who is, and is not, delusional here.

When backed into a corner the Claremontistas frequently repeat Harry Jaffa’s disingenuous charge that the "White Citizens Councils" of the 1950s also pointed out Lincoln’s white supremacist views, implying that anyone else who quotes them must agree with white racists. The silly thing about this feeble-minded charge, however, is that Lincoln himself agreed with the "White Citizens Councils," as just shown. I bring these statements up in my book as an illustration of how generations of Americans have been lied to about the real Lincoln by the likes of Thomas Krannawitter.

Yet another fabrication is Krannawitter’s statement that I completely ignore the natural rights foundation of American government – which I do not. I argue that in light of Lincoln’s outspoken opposition to racial equality, his promise upon being elected to support a constitutional amendment to protect Southern slavery, his promise in the First Inaugural to not interfere with Southern slavery, and his evisceration of constitutional liberties in the North during the war, the claim that Lincoln was a great champion of natural rights is dubious, if not preposterous. I quote one of the preeminent natural rights theorists of the day, the Massachusetts abolitionist Lysander Spooner, along with the great historian of liberty Lord Acton, as supporting my position. The claim that I ignore natural rights arguments is yet another lie.

Krannawitter slanders Edgar Lee Masters, author of Lincoln the Man, by referring to the book as a compilation of "slanders" against Lincoln without offering a single example. He then plays the guilt-by-association game by noting that I quote the book "approvingly." The implication is that I repeat the alleged "slanders" by Masters, an Illinois native who was Clarence Darrow’s law partner and a famous playwright in the first half of the twentieth century. In reality, I quote only one passage from Lincoln the Man, and it is about Henry Clay, not Lincoln. It is a perfect description of the corrupt, mercantilist economic agenda (protectionist tariffs, corporate welfare for the railroad and road-building industries, and inflationism through central banking) that Clay championed and which was adopted by Lincoln. Masters described that system as one which "doles favors to the strong in order to win and to keep their adherence to the government," a system which "offered shelter to devious schemes and corrupt enterprises" and "a people taxed to make profits for enterprises that cannot stand alone." Exactly.

I discuss in The Real Lincoln how Lincoln devoted a 28-year political career prior to becoming president to this economic agenda, and how it was all finally put into place in the first eighteen months of his administration. Krannawitter is not interested in any of this, however, for his objective is to mislead, not enlighten his readers about the contents of my book.

Krannawitter is as ignorant of public choice or political economy as he is of international economics. At one point he criticizes me for supposedly not understanding that "all economics is political economics." In fact, my entire book is an exercise in political economy, with a major theme being how the Hamilton/Clay/Lincoln agenda of mercantilism was battled over in American politics for some seventy years before finally prevailing during Lincoln’s reign.

In the very next sentence after ludicrously claiming that I am unaware of political economy Krannawitter identifies me as a public choice economist, a "sin" to which I plead guilty, having been a student at VPI of Nobel laureate James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock. Krannawitter is obviously ignorant of the fact that public choice is precisely the way in which the study of political economy was resurrected in the economics profession some forty years ago. He is in a fog here and is grasping at straws.

Krannawitter ridiculously asserts that John C. Calhoun invented the doctrine of legal secession out of thin air in order to divorce the idea of states’ rights from natural rights. But as I discuss in my book, the New England Federalists believed in a legal right of secession and they attempted to have the New England states secede from the Union for over a decade after Jefferson’s election. No one at the time argued that a legal right of secession did not exist, only that it may not have been a wise course to take.

Northern abolitionists also argued for a legal right of secession, wisely understanding that if the Northern states were to secede the Fugitive Slave Clause, which subsidized the institution of slavery, would have become defunct.

There were scholars such as the Pennsylvania abolitionist William Rawle, a close personal friend of George Washington’s, who believed in a constitutional right of secession as well. Rawle’s book, A View of the Constitution, argued this and was the one text on the Constitution that was used at West Point before the war.

And before Fort Sumter, as I show in my book, dozens of Northern newspapers editorialized in favor of a constitutional or legal right of secession on behalf of the Southern states. These Northern newspapers were not acolytes of John C. Calhoun; they believed that governments derived their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that whenever a political community no longer consented then it had a right to secede from the contract. Newspapers throughout the Northern states expressed this view.

Krannawitter is extremely patronizing toward Walter Williams, who wrote the Foreword to The Real Lincoln. He calls it "shameful" that Walter would endorse a book that Krannawitter says "celebrates" John C. Calhoun. Of course, the book does no such thing, and Walter is fully aware that there were Southerners like Calhoun who defended slavery. What is shameful is the assertion that Walter, who could run intellectual rings around Krannawitter, is somehow unaware of such things.

Having read my book, Walter is also aware that Northerners treated the few blacks who were permitted to live among them as worse than second-class citizens; that Lincoln spoke out of both sides of his mouth with regard to racial equality; that he advocated deporting black people out of the country; that the Emancipation Proclamation specifically exempted all those areas of the South and the border states where slaves could have actually been freed; that dozens of countries around the world, including the British and Spanish empires, ended slavery peacefully during the first half of the nineteenth century; that he trashed constitutional liberties in the North and waged war on innocent civilians; and many other facts that he (or anyone else) would never know of if he were to rely on the biased and distorted history that comes from the Claremont Institute.

Krannawitter concludes his tirade in a most buffoonish way, by claiming that it takes "a real man" (no women, presumably) like himself to engage in the kind of analysis of Lincoln that he and his fellow Claremontistas perform, compared to that of a mere "boy" like myself. He then partakes in a spasm of puerile name calling that suggests there is a need for some adult supervision at the Claremont Institute.

June 17, 2002

Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail]

[rdf]

Incredible.

Just read the book.

The man is pathetic.

Cheers,<P.Richard F.

[rdf]

It's a good idea to let Krannawitter speak for himself, since DiLorenzo botches everything he touches,

Here is the start of the second paragraph of his review.

*****

As the title suggests, The Real Lincoln purports to go beyond the mountains of revisionist historiography to reveal Lincoln's genuine principles and purposes. According to DiLorenzo, these had nothing to do with the perpetuation of free government and the problem of slavery: The "real" Lincoln did not care a whit about the "peculiar institution." At the core of the "real" Lincoln's ambition was an unqualified and unwavering commitment to mercantilism, or socialism as DiLorenzo sometimes intimates. Lincoln would stop at nothing to impose the "Whig economic system" upon America, and any opinion he voiced regarding slavery was merely instrumental in advancing this end.

********

Can anyone who has read DiLorenzo's book honestly deny the fairness of this sketch of some of its theses?

Cheers,

Richard F.

[rdf]

I wrote:

"He has Lincoln, in the Illinois Legislature, urging some racist legislation, in 1857."

Do you have the reference on that?

The sentence in DiLorenzo is on page 18, as I have said before. The date in Dr. D's book is, indeed, 1857, and Lincoln is said to be a legislator. He was not.

Are you sure it wasn't 1837? Or maybe 54? If it does indeed exist, it sounds to me like it may be a typo. That makes your complaint with it, as I have said, more pettyness and no substance.

There is no typo, and the "urging" has no basis in the record. But the error does come from a book by Berwnager, which DiLorenzo used without checking its sources. He added the "member of the Illinois legislature" from his own fertile imagination.

I asked a major Lincoln Scholar [not from Claremont, and not Jaffa] about this, and this is what he said:

**********

Dr. Ferrier,

I do still have this library's copy of Berwanger, after all, and there is on page 4-5 a sentence that might appear to justify diL"s claim.

Berwanger is writing a paragraph about the colonization movement as an illustration of the intense racial prejudice of the Middle West, and after naming others he writes this sentence: "Lincoln in 1857 urged the Illinois legislature to appropriate money for colonization in order to remove free Negroes from the state and prevent miscegenation."

This sentence has a footnote, which takes one to volume II of the Collected Works, in two places.

The first (298-300) proves to be the notes for a speech Lincoln made to the colonization society, which the editors date as 1855--or maybe 1853 or 1854, but certainly not 1857. The notes are a history of the slave trade first, then of the opposition to slavery.

In my view not only is the date wrong, but there is nothing in these notes to justify Berwanger's sentence.

So then the other reference, which is indeed 1857--to passages in the middle of Lincoln's speech on the Dred Scott case, He is indeed talking about colonization, and separation of the races, but look at the context! Look at the contrast he makes between the parties in the paragraph at the bottom of the page! (409).

I hope you have access to Basler so you can look at these; it takes analysis of the whole context.

So the fault, in my view, is first of all in Berwanger. His citations, at least, don't justify his sentence. So then diL comes and adds his twist to Berwanger's twist----

Sorry I did not get this right away, and sorry to take up so much space. Still not enough to explain it all.

Best wishes and strenth to you as you combat these lunatics.

********

I [rdf] give the link to the first of the citations from Berwanger below

I assume anyone can find the Dred Scott speech of June 26th, 1857.

Link

Bottom line ---

There is no evidence that Lincoln ever did what Berwanger said he did, and which DiLorenzo uncritically followed and embellished.

I can't tell you how often this happens when you try to check Dr. D.'s sources.

Regards,

Richard F.

[rdf]

Dr. D. writes,

[Krannawitter] claims, for example, that I say that Lincoln "did not care a whit about" slavery. This is a lie; these words do not appear in my book, nor does any similar statement. On page 13 I note how Lincoln used natural rights language to condemn slavery by calling it a "monstrous injustice," among other things.

Krannawitter does not quote Dr. D. as saying this, and Dr. D. is the shyster. As to Dr. D's holding, not in these exact words, the position that Lincoln didn't care about slavery, please read the page 13 that he cites. He has Lincoln defending natural rights, "at least rhetorically" [my emphasis] and being, on this issue, " a masterful, rhetorically gifted, fence-straddling politican wanting to have it both ways -- in favor of and opposed to racial equality at the same time -- in an attempt to maximize his political support." many other places in this chapter could be cited to the same effect.

Dr. D. praises Walter Williams as one who understands his book. Williams wrote the Foreword.

Williams writes, "Abraham Lincoln's direct statements indicated his support for slavery." That has to be one the most misleading things Williams has ever written, and he wrote it in praise of Dr. D.'s book, presumably under the influence of it, having just read it.

Sad.

Richard F.

[l8pilot]

Lincoln shared with Hitler, Stalin, and Mao s'Tung a fascination with the centralisation of government. They share a common heritage of genocide and murder.

Walt, I know that you said that you have never voted for a Republican in a National election, but even as a Clinton-Gore Democrat, you should be offended by Lincolon's rascism and hatred of his own "country men".

Whatever happened to "Government by the consent of the governed?" Government, "of the People, by the People, and for the People", died on the fields of Gettysburg, Shilo, and Vicksburg.

In the same way the 13 original colonies should be free of the British empire, so should the 13 states (and anyone else), who opposes the American empire, be free of the slavery of Washington--today.

We Southrons have fought your wars for over a century and a half.

You claim to be a Marine. I just retired fro the Marine Corps as a Lt.Col. Unlike you, I did not forget that I swore an oath to defend the "Constitution..against all enemies foreign and domestic", as opposed to the blind allegience to a piece of cloth.

One oath embraces the ideas of freedom, and limited government. The other embraces the idolatry to a piece of cloth.

A nationalist and a patriot are two different people. The first is a slave to the government. A patriot is dedicated to freedom.

Choose now who you shall serve....

I am conviced that the North, and West Coast is lost, so "I'll take my stand, to live and die, in Dixie", where we still remember what it was like, to be an "American".

For an independent, Christian, Southern nation

Larry Salley

[rdf]

Those whom the gods would make mad, they first convert to neo-reb-ism.

Turn again to reason, before it is too late. And note how reason, truth, and facts are trashed by Dr. Demento and his ilk.

Richard F.

[rdf]

And now for the Rawle business.

It's not hard to research these things, unless you have a mental block.

****

WAS “SECESSION” TAUGHT AT WEST POINT? WHAT THE RECORDS SHOW

BY COLONEL EDGAR S. DUDLEY
Judge-advocate, United States Army

Was the right of a State to secede from Union taught at the United States Military Academy?

Was Rawle’s work “A View of the Constitution of the United State,” a text-book at the military academy at any time prior to the Civil War? Did that book advocate the right of secession, and did it inculcate the duty of the individual to be loyal to his State rather than to the Union?

Was this work the legal and authorized text-book from which General Albert Sidney Johnston (1826), Mr. Jefferson Davis (1828), Generals Robert E. Lee (1829) Joseph E. Johnston (1829), Thomas J. (“Stonewall”) Jackson (1846), Dabney Maury (1846), Fitzhugh Lee (1856), and others graduated at West Point between the years 1825 and 1861, received instruction in constitutional law?

THE above are questions which for years have been asked of the authorities at West Point as a result of statements made in public speeches, in newspapers, magazines, and books, that the right of “secession” of a State was there taught to the graduates named, and from the text-book mentioned above, and which, if unanswered, are tending toward being accepted as historical fact.

Several statements from various sources, made at different times, allege that Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, “Stonewall” Jackson, and other prominent graduates who entered the Southern Confederacy, were taught at the United States Military Academy that any State had a right to secede, and that their duty at that time was allegiance to their States. It has been asserted that the doctrine of the right of secession was inculcated at West Point as an admitted principle of constitutional law and, in each case, it has been said that ‘‘A View of the Constitution of the United States,” published in Philadelphia in I8225, by William Rawle, was the text-book used. The year of graduation is placed after each of the names mentioned above, and it will be apparent therefrom, after noting them, that instruction in the right of secession, if such instruction was given, as has been alleged, must have extended over the period of thirty years or more, or from the cadet days of General Albert Sidney Johnston, 1826, to those of General Fitzhugh Lee, 1856.

An exhaustive and impartial search through the records of the military academy was necessary to gather all the facts and determine the whole truth as to this question.

The assertions as to the text-book being confined to the use of Rawle’s “View of the Constitution,’’ it was necessary to discover whether the records of the academy gave any information as to the adoption of this work by the academic board or as to its use as a text-book. The book itself speaks the author’s views, and portions bearing on the question of secession will be quoted later.

While the records of the military academy do not give the names of all the text-books used in the earlier years, they do [630] contain the record of each examination for every year, together with the subject of examination, so that the question as to whether a certain subject was taught may be verified.

The effort to give some reason or to find some justification for the action of these graduates in joining the Confederacy, through the statement that they were taught the right of a State to secede at the military academy, appears unnecessary and without any good basis. We all under-stand to-day, and can sympathize with them in their difficult situation, and the attempt to excuse their action seems without adequate cause.

The conflict in their minds and hearts was between two classes of duty; their decision was made for that which they believed to be most binding on them. They were called upon to decide between their legal and moral duty to support and maintain the Union and what they believed to be their moral and personal duty to their kindred, their homes, their locality, and their Stare. It seems to have been made a personal matter which each felt called upon to decide for himself according to the dictates of his own conscience as to what was right. Many realized, as did General Robert E. Lee, that “Secession is nothing but revolution,” and those who were in the United States Army at the time, feeling their legal obligation, endeavored to separate themselves from it by resigning their commissions.

In this conflict between two classes of duty requiring these graduates to decide which they felt to be the superior, many of those born in, and appointed from, Southern States, like Generals George H. Thomas, William Hays, Henry D. Wallen, John Newton, Barton S. Alexander, Thomas J. Wood, Richard I. Dodge, Stephen V. Benet, and many others, decided for what they considered to be their legal and moral duties, and remained loyal to the Union.

If the study of Rawle, if it was taught them, is urged as an excuse for the action of those who went to the Confederacy, what excuse can be made for these men who, receiving the same instruction, remained loyal to the Union under as great a pressure, and with a more intensified feeling against their action, because, in doing so, it severed them from home, kindred, and their native States?

Many of the authorities for the assertion as to the use of Rawle’s work as a text-book at the military academy have been collected by Colonel Robert Bingham of Asheville, North Carolina, and are inserted in a preface to a pamphlet reprint of an article entitled “Sectional Misunderstandings,” which was originally published in the “North American Review” of September, 1904. In this preface he says:
The crux of the following paper is the historic fact, often asserted and never officially denied, that, from 1825 (the year during which Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis entered the U. S. Military Academy) to as late as 1840, and probably later, the United States Government taught its cadets at West Point from Rawle’s View of the Constitution that the Union was dissoluble, and that, if it should be dissolved, allegiance reverted ‘to the STATES. Some conclusive documentary proof of this historic fact is hereby offered, for the first time, as far as the writer knows or has been able to ascertain.

This statement, with the documents quoted, covers the gist of the claim. To ascertain the truth of the matter, a thorough examination of the academic records has now for the first time been made.

The “documentary proof” following this statement of Colonel Bingham consists of letters from the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy, from its librarian, some from descendants [630] of the Rawle family, and from others, none of which states definitely and positively from, certain knowledge that Rawle’s “View of the Constitution” was used as a text-book, though some of them say that they have heard it stated as a fact, and believe it to be true. Among the letters are two from graduates of the period covered in this inquiry. Almost every statement is based upon “recollection” or “hearsay and belief.”

In addition to these letters, there is quoted one from the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, inclosing a copy of one of his own publications entitled, “The Constitutional Ethics of Secession,” in which it is said that “anterior to 1840 the doctrine of the right of secession seems to have been inculcated at West Point as an admitted principle of Constitutional Law. … Prior to 1840, his [Rawle’s] View was the text-book in use at West Point.”

General Adams wrote this upon information he then had at hand, and refers to correspondence with “the librarian and authorities at West Point.”

A letter dated November 23, 1904, and written by the librarian of the United States Military Academy, is quoted by Colonel Bingham, to the effect that “the copy” of Rawle’s “View of the Constitution” “owned by the Library U. S. M. A., contains Ms. notes which make it very probable that this book was used as a textbook at the Military Academy, inasmuch as there is a list of sections and lessons marked.”

A rigid and careful examination of this book, with a decipherment of the pencil notes and marks in it, shows that the librarian, while correct in his statement as to the probable use of Rawle’s work, was mistaken in his ground therefor as to this particular book, and that these notes and marks do not indicate a list of sections or a division of the text into lessons, as might have been the case if it had been used as a text-book.

The superintendent of the military academy wrote, November 14, 1904, that in the “Memorial Volume of the Military Academy,” soon to he published, the following note would appear:
The text-book of the law department, from (?) to (?). The copy of this hook owned by the Library U. S. Military Academy makes it very probable that it was used as a text-book.

But the same superintendent, after a further examination of the matter, wrote later, July 10, 1905, to the Hon. W.A. Calderhead, Marysville, Kansas:
The records of the Department have been carefully searched and these do not show that Rawle was ever used either as a textbook or work of reference.

General Adams published his pamphlet in 1903, and his letter inclosing it was written in 1904, so that it is very probable that he had the first statements given above, or similar information, upon which he based his assertion. In a personal letter to the writer hereof, dated March 4, 1908, he has since written:
I freely confess, and with some mortification, that the reference in my booklet, “The Ethics of Secession,” was too strong. I should have stated that Rawle’s “View” “is said to have been used as a text-book at West Point” during the period named, As it stands, I have stated it as a fact. I did so on the authority of others, mainly Southern writers, including Jefferson Davis. He, however, gave different limits of time for its use. My own final impression on the matter is, that Rawle’s “View” never was an established and authorized text-book at the Academy for any course of Instruction; but, between 1825 and 1832, the question of Nullification and the right of secession were freely discussed among the students, and Rawle’s view was that certainly accepted by the Southern students, and, in all probability, by the mass of both students and instructors. I have equally little question that frequent reference was made to the book.

The facts as above set forth remove the letters mentioned above, and quoted by Colonel Bingham, from acceptance as “conclusive documentary proof.”

But two of the letters quoted later by Colonel Bingham contain direct statements from graduates of their recollection that Rawle’s “View of the Constitution” was used as a text-book while they were cadets. As far as it relates to themselves, their assertion as to its use may be accepted as di- [632] rect personal evidence based upon their memory, recollection, and belief. But others are named as using it who were not with them, or in their classes, at the academy, and what is said of them is therefore based upon “hearsay,” and is not direct evidence, but depends upon the statements and recollection of ‘others.

The two following extracts from the “Preface” of Colonel Bingham contain the most direct statements made, and name the individual graduates who are said to have been instructed in Rawle’s “View of the Constitution”; they are therefore given in full:
(From Fitzhugh Lee)
Norfolk, Va., Dec. 5, 1904. … My recollection is that Rawle’s View of the Constitution was the legal text-book at West Point when Generals Lee, Joseph E. Johnston and Stonewall Jackson were Cadets there, and later on was a text-book when I was a cadet there. (Signed) Fitzhugh Lee.

(From Gen. Dabney H. Maury)

In Vol. 6, p. 249, “Southern Historical Society Papers”: … It [Rawle] remained as a text-book at West Point till —; and Mr. Davis and Sidney Johnston and General Joe Johnston and General Lee, and all the rest of us who retired with Virginia from the Federal Union, were not only obeying the plain instincts of our nature and dictates of duty but we were obeying the very inculcations we had received in the National School. It is not probable that any of us ever read the Constitution or any exposition of it except this work of Rawle, which we studied in our graduating year at West Point, I know I did not (Signed) Dabney H. Maury.

As stated above by General Maury, the subject of constitutional law was taught in the “graduating year.” As Jefferson Davis was graduated in 1828, General Fitzhugh Lee in 1856, and General Albert Sidney Johnston in 1826, the examination of the records was from the year 1825 until the beginning of the Civil War, in 1861, and even beyond the latter date. Where the text-hooks used are not specifically named in the record, resort was had to the records of examinations, which give the subjects of each examination and the standing of cadets therein for each year.

The department of geography, history, and ethics, in which instruction in law was given during the period under consideration, was created by the Act of April 14, 1818, with the chaplain as professor. He seems to have had great latitude as to the subjects of instruction in his department. In the Report of the Board of Visitors, June 7, 1826, which shows that there was an examination that year in political economy and the Constitution of the United States, the Board says:
A department has, therefore, gradually grown up into which several branches have been successively crowded, little connected with each other, or with the rest of the studies pursued here, and which can find no suitable place in the Academic course, but at the expense of something more immediate to the wants and objects of the Institution. In this way there have been introduced, from time to time, English Grammar, Geography, History, Rhetoric, Natural and Political Law, Constitutional Law, and Political Economy. Some of them have been taught every year, but in no one year have all of them been taught because it was impossible to find place and room for them all. During the last year English Grammar, Rhetoric, the Constitutional Law of the United States, and Political Economy, have been taught, each very imperfectly and superficially for want of time and means.

and the Board therefore recommended that “this department of studies be broken up.”

It will be noted that the professor apparently selected from this list of subjects those to be taught in any one year, and those so taught were likely to be displaced by some other subject the following year. “In no one year were all of them taught.”

Constitutional law was one of the subjects taught in the year 1826, and it became important to ascertain, if possible, the text-book used. The records mention no text-book; it was undoubtedly selected by the professor on his own motion, and it became a question as to which of two works. Sergeant’s, published in 1822, or Rawle’s, published in 1825, may have been [633] used, copies of each being found in the academy library.

No authority is to be found in the academic records for the use of either of these works or any reference to either of them; but in the journal of S. P. Heintzelman, United States Army, kept while a cadet at the military academy, which is now in the academy library, reference is found to recitation and examination in “Rawle on the Constitution.” General Heintzelman was graduated in the class of 1826, with General Albert Sidney Johnston, and it affords evidence, therefore, that Albert Sidney Johnston received instruction in this textbook.

The following year, 1827, and in 1829 and 1830, the records show that the examinations were in “Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy” only, there being no reference to constitutional law and no indication that it was taught in those years.

They do show, however, an examination in constitutional law in 1828. This was the year when Jefferson Davis was graduated, and he has stated in a letter to the Hon. R. T. Bennett of North Carolina, quoted by General Morris Schaff in “The Spirit of Old West Point,” note, p. 229, as appearing in vol. 22, p. 83, “Southern Historical Society Papers,” as follows:
Rawle on the Constitution was the textbook at West Point, but when the class of which I was a member entered the graduating year Kent’s Commentaries were introduced as the text-book on the Constitution and International Law.

There is confirmatory evidence of the correctness of his statement in the fact that while no text-book is named, the records show- that his class was examined in “National and Constitutional Law,” and there is no book of that period, to my knowledge, that in plan and character will fulfil the conditions of a work to be used for such instruction, or that corresponds to this description, so nearly as Kent’s “Commentaries.” The first volume of Kent begins, Part I, with “The Law of Nations,” and is followed, Part II, by “The Government and Constitutional Jurisprudence of the United States,” or constitutional law. The use of the words “National Law” in the sense of “Law of Nations” in connection with “Constitutional Law” as the subject of the examination pertains so closely to the description of Kent’s “Commentaries” in its text that it seems impossible to escape the conclusion that this was the book used, and it is corroborative of the statement of Mr. Davis that he was instructed in Kent’s “Commentaries,” and evidence, therefore, that he did not receive instruction in Rawle’s “View of the Constitution.”

General Robert E, Lee and General Joseph E. Johnston were graduated the following year, 1829, and, as stated above, the record for that year shows the examination to have been in “Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy.” Constitutional law was apparently not taught that class. If it had been, Kent’s “Commentaries,” being in use the previous year, would in all likelihood have been continued, as it was later, the report of the Board of Visitors for June, 1831, showing it then in use; and it is on the list of class books published in the register of the United States Military Academy in 1832. Generals Thomas J. (“Stonewall”) Jackson and Dabney H. Maury were graduated in 1846, and General Fitzhugh Lee in 1856.

In the official “Cadet Register” in 1841, and for each successive year to 1862, and for several years later, Kent’s “Commentaries” is specifically named as the textbook, and is the only work on constitutional law mentioned as used. No other text-book on that subject is referred to and the statements made that Rawle’s “View of the Constitution” was the adopted and legal text-book during that period is directly opposed to, and controverted by, these records, so that neither of these officers, nor any other graduating during this period, could, according to the records of the academy, have been instructed there from Rawle’s work as an authorized text-book, but did actually receive instruction from Kent’s “Commentaries.”

It is undoubtedly true that the question of the right of a State to secede was under discussion by cadets and that Rawle’s work was often referred to in these discussions and its views quoted in support of the right of secession. It is because of this fact that it is probable that the memories of these graduates are at fault in thinking [634] and believing it to have been used as an authorized text-book. Their recollection and the records, however, are in conflict on this point.

General Fitzhugh Lee speaks from his ‘recollection,” and while General Maury does not thus limit his statement, it is evident, as will appear, that he was also speaking from memory and not from the record.

That Rawle’s work had its influence, although not used as a text-hook, may be accepted as true; but the question here is not as to such influence, but as to whether it was the authorized text-hook used at the United States Military Academy for the years in question, and, therefore, for the instruction of the graduates named, and which claim, as to its use, extends from 1825 to include at least the class of Fitzhugh Lee, who was graduated in 1856, and approximately up to the beginning of the Civil War.

General Maury, General Fitzhugh Lee, and Mr. Davis were all graduates of the military academy, and not for one moment will any one who knew them believe that an incorrect statement was knowingly made by any of them. But years had elapsed since they were cadets, during which events changed the whole tenor of thought of the entire country, and led many to endeavor to recall the origin of their earlier beliefs. Questions of great national importance had been discussed and decided, while the personal experiences of a great war, with its subsequent events and trials, had been passed through, so that if memory failed properly to connect the dates and events of those earlier years, it is certainly pardonable. It is unquestionable that they stated that which they believed to be true, whether speaking from recollection or from hearsay. It must also be remembered that at the period under investigation the question as to the right of a State to secede was not definitely settled. Even with Northern writers there was a difference of opinion on the subject, and it was finally adjudicated only after an appeal to arms.

An apparent injustice has been done to Judge Rawle by some writers in the inference to be drawn from their statements that he was an advocate of secession. It is important to bear in mind that this is far from being the case. He was, on the contrary, a strong advocate of the maintenance of the Union. While holding to the abstract right of the people of a State to withdraw from the Union in this work, “A View of the Constitution of the United States of America,” he earnestly discourages it in forcible language as disastrous and parricidal. He says:
The consequences of an absolute secession cannot be mistaken, and they would be serious and afflicting. … Separation would produce jealousies and discord, which in time would ripen into mutual hostilities, and while our country would be weakened by internal war, foreign enemies would be encouraged to invade with the flattering prospect of subduing in detail those whom, collectively, they would dread to encounter p.299.

In every aspect therefore which this great subject presents, we feel the deepest impression of a sacred obligation to preserve the union of our country; we feel our glory, our safety, and our happiness, involved in it; we unite the interests of those who coldly calculate advantages with those who glow with what is little short of filial affection; and we must resist the attempt of its own citizens to destroy it, with the same feelings that we should avert the dagger of the parricide. P.301

A statement has also frequently been made, and Colonel Bingham quotes it from “The Republic of Republics,” 4th Ed., 1878, Preface, p. V, and from a letter of the Rev. Dr. L. W. Bacon of Massachusetts, to the effect that in case of the trial of Jefferson Davis for high treason, the defense would have offered in evidence the text-book on constitutional law (Rawle’s “View of the Constitution”) from which Davis had been instructed at West Point by the authority of the United States Government, and in which the right of secession is maintained as one of the constitutional rights of a State.

It need only be said as to this that it was an unsupported proposition, not acted on, and which could not have been sustained from the- academic records, and which, accepting Mr. Davis’s own statement with reference to it, as given above, could not have been maintained, It was [635] “in his own interest” for Mr. Davis to state that he was taught Rawle, if such was the fact, and when he said the contrary, — that Kent’s “Commentaries” were introduced for his class, — it is “against interest,” and must be accepted as stating the actual fact in the case.

CONCLUSIONS

THE result of this examination of the records of the United States Military Academy, and of the review of statements on both sides of the subject, shows conclusively, to my mind, that Rawle’s work “A View of the Constitution of the United States” was introduced as a text-book by the professor of geography, history, and ethics for one year only (1826), and was then discontinued, never again being used; that it was never officially adopted as a text-book by action of the academic board; that of all the graduates named only one, General Albert Sidney Johnston, of the class of 1826, received instruction in that work; that the records show positively the use of Kent’s “Commentaries” from 1841 until after the beginning of the Civil War, so that no one who was graduated during that period could ever have had Rawle as an authorized text-book.

There is no necessity to seek to assign “instruction at the military academy” as an excuse for the action of those who joined the Confederacy or for those who remained loyal to the Union. Each graduate made his choice in honest and conscientious belief that he was in the right, and, whatever the origin of his belief, fought for it, while many on each side of the issue died fighting for it.

The question of the right of a State to secede ‘from the Union has been settled forever, and no defense is now needed for those who fought for their opinions, following the dictates of their own consciences. The records are on file at the military academy, and speak for themselves; the conclusions drawn are of course my own, and made on my own responsibility.

The Century Magazine, vol. LXXVIII: 4 (August 1909), 629-636

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CONCLUSIONS THE result of this examination of the records of the United States Military Academy, and of the review of statements on both sides of the subject, shows conclusively, to my mind, that Rawle’s work “A View of the Constitution of the United States” was introduced as a text-book by the professor of geography, history, and ethics for one year only (1826), and was then discontinued, never again being used; that it was never officially adopted as a text-book by action of the academic board; that of all the graduates named only one, General Albert Sidney Johnston, of the class of 1826, received instruction in that work; that the records show positively the use of Kent’s “Commentaries” from 1841 until after the beginning of the Civil War, so that no one who was graduated during that period could ever have had Rawle as an authorized text-book. There is no necessity to seek to assign “instruction at the military academy” as an excuse for the action of those who joined the Confederacy or for those who remained loyal to the Union. Each graduate made his choice in honest and conscientious belief that he was in the right, and, whatever the origin of his belief, fought for it, while many on each side of the issue died fighting for it.

More evidence, for those with ears to hear.

Richard F.

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ping

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And by all means, take Locke as your own as well.

Thanks, I will, following Jefferson.

You show your tue colors, and that is a good thing.

Richard F.