Was Lincoln a Tyrant?

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

[davidjquackenbush]

<p>

CONTENT="">

dd

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.

Back to LewRockwell.com Home Page

[stand watie]

wow, and i thought i was cynical!

if i'm right about secession, the division will be peaceful and the independent nations will learn to live/trade together as good neighbors.

quit kidding yourself-the UN is powerless, unless most of the the member states decide to do something,then the UN blue helmets will be IRRELEVANT.

i for one think the UN will wither and die, as more and more countries see it for what it really is = a collossal FAILURE and a waste of money.

as for the new and much improved Southron Republic, of which i write and dream, will chose NOT to be a superpower but rather to be: anti-imperialist,pro-free trade,religious, neutralist in foreign policy BUT armed to the teeth for defense,have few taxes, well-controlled borders and a willingness to stay out of other nations business. i think we will resemble the Swiss Republic, but with a much warmer climate!

for that day of dixie FREEDOM,sw

[GOPcapitalist]

GOPCapitalist quotes: "I was an old Henry Clay tariff whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject, than on any other. I have not since changed my views." - A. Lincoln, October 11, 1859 but, like Dr. Dimento, leaves out the rest of the quote in which Lincoln says that Whigenomics (my coinage - I'm in a hurry here) is NO LONGER his (to use GOPCapitalist's word) "agenda".

Really? Why then did you not bother to put in the rest of the quote I supposedly "left out" of the picture?

In fact, if you wanted to discuss it, all you had to do was ask as I am happy to provide the entire letter.

In fact, looking at the letter's in its entirity, Lincoln does NOT, as you suggest, assert that this position is, as you put it in a fabrication of your own that seems to come out of nowhere, "no longer" Lincoln's agenda. To the contrary, he goes on to advocate a tariff and expresses his desire that the issue and implementation of a tariff will occur in the near future.

For the record, here is the part of the letter I quoted:

"I was an old Henry Clay tariff whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject, than on any other. I have not since changed my views."

Immediately following that last period, Lincoln continues with the following, which in no reasonable way resembles what you asserted it to be in your earlier fraudulent accusation of faulty truncation.

"I believe yet, if we could have a moderate, carefully adjusted, protective tariff, so far acquiesed in, as to not be a perpetual subject of political strife, squabbles, charges, and uncertainties, it would be better for us."

In other words, Lincoln first says he's an old tariff Whig whose views have not changed. Next he advocates implementing a tariff, yet not a word about it no longer being his agenda or anything of the sort. The letter continues, again immediately from where the previous quote left off, with a comment on the political viability of the issue.

"Still, it is my opinion that, just now, the revival of that question, will not advance the cause itself, or the man who revives it."

In short, pushing the issue as part of his campaign would be too divisive and cost him votes. But Lincoln does not stop there. Quite to the contrary, he continues in anticipation of the tariff becoming reality. Immediately from where the last quotation left off, which might I add again had nothing even remotely suggesting the tariff was no longer his issue as you fraudulently asserted, Lincoln continues:

"I have not thought much upon the subject recently; but my general impression is, that the necessity for a protective tariff will, ere long, force it's old opponents to take it up;"

Lincoln expresses hope of the protective tariff becoming a politically viable necessity in the near future. Continuing from the semi-colon where we left off, Lincoln writes:

"and then it's old friends can join in, and establish it on a more firm and durable basis. We, the old whigs, have been entirely beaten out on the tariff question; and we shall not be able to re-establish the policy, until the absence of it, shall have demonstrated the necessity for it, in the minds of men heretofore opposed to it." ...a reiteration of the previous lines. Lincoln advocates the tariff's "old friends," himself included, being able to take it up in the near future when it is politically viable. He then concedes again that it is not politically viable as a campaign issue (this particular letter of his was in response to a request that he campaign on the issue) at the time and that if he were to make it so, it would hurt him as his position, the Whig position, was in the minority at the time. Then he expresses hope again that necessity would require its reestablishment in the future. I think it is safe to add that at this future point, Lincoln would not have hesitated to take up the tariff issue, as happened a year later after the Morrill bill passed.

"Agenda" means, more or less, "things to be done". But Lincoln clearly says that the issues of slavery is, at the time of his writing, so much more important than anything else that he is pretty much willing to let Whigenomics slide -- that is, to remove it from his list of things to be done.

Really? Cause the issue of slavery does not appear anywhere at all in the entirity of the letter from which my original quote was taken. Nor does he give any indication that he is willing to drop the tariff issue. To the contrary, he expresses hope of instituting it in the near future. In light of these facts, and the rest of the quote (the substance of which I have posted for your review above) it is clear that you do not have a clue as to what you are talking about. I may safely say that you are making things up. Some would say that you are lying.

I don't think this is a nuance. It is a subtlety, but that's not a bad thing. Details of this kind do matter,

Sure they do, as does getting the details right. You got them wrong and in fact appear to have simply MADE THEM UP instead of seeking them out.

Were I to say such a thing and were someone to characterize getting a Ferrari as my "agenda", I would just laugh, since, like LIncoln in the passage referred to above I had just pretty much renounced it as an agenda item, while admitting it was still an desire.

You may have renounced your agenda, but Lincoln did not. You made up the claim that he did and asserted it to have followed that quote, even though it did not.

In fact, Lincoln's career after the 1859 letter I quoted indicates continued support for the tariff.

In more than one case after that letter, Lincoln pledged his support of the pro-tariff plank of the 1860 Republican platform. He continued to do so after the election.

In a February 15, 1861 speech devoted almost entirely to advocating the tariff, Lincoln stated:

"In the Chicago Platform there is a plank upon this subject, which should be a general law, to the incoming administration. We should do neither more nor less than we gave the people reason to believe we would, when they gave us their votes. That plank is as I now read: 'That, while providing revenue for the support of the General Government by duties upon imposts, sound policy requires such an adjustment of the imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interest of the whole country, and we commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to the working men liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence.'"

That was just weeks before his inauguration at a time when the Morrill bill was a big issue.

In that same speech, Lincoln even proclaimed the tariff issue a top issue priority, stating "if the consideration of the Tariff bill should be postponed until the next session of the National Legislature, no subject should engage your representatives more closely than that of a tariff."

This is not to say that many aspects of Lincoln's economic thinking are not troubling. They are.

I'll agree. Perhaps most troubling is his rudimentary version of the labor theory of value, which appeared all over his political career. The first recorded indications of it came around 1847 on some of his speech notes that have survived. He mentioned it again in the 1861 speech I just quoted to you, and at another date during one of his state of the union addresses.

They're also irrelevant.

Now that's pretty convenient of you, don't you think? I believe Lincoln's advocacy of tariffs during his later career as well as it being the dominant issue of his early career makes it relevant in the very least.

Selective quoting is just one of his tools (and, unfortunately, one of those of some of his defenders).

Really? Because selective Lincoln quoting seems to be one of the, if not the, favorite tool of Lincoln defenders on this forum. A close second favorite of theirs is McPherson quoting.

When the whole record is displayed, a much more complex picture of Lincoln is painted, and in the very least it is not near as pretty.

We also are obliged to enjoy the outright fabrications (Lincoln to the legislature in 1857 - 1857??), the passing of blame to unverifed secondary sources

Actually, Ferrier's own source conceded that the 1857 thing was an error originally made by a secondary source that DiLorenzo cited.

and the gnostic insistence that his thesis stands whether or not the facts he uses to support it are really facts.

I know of no such silly insistence, though I do readily admit to expressing the valid concern that his 300 page work cannot simply be blown off upon 4-5 oft repeated exercises in downright obsessive pettyness. Several DiLorenzo critics have asserted there to be "dozens" of errors, but they always repeat the same 4-5 complaints, some of which are blurred and interpretive at best. Why is that and where are these supposed "dozens" of others?

I would have thought that far, far better arguments could be made for the anti-Lincoln POV. As far as I'm concerned the most troubling argument AGAINST the neo-reb position is that the facts they advance to support their stand are so unreliable.

With all due respect, I do not think you have much room to talk considering the embarrassing exercise you employed to start off this very post to which I am responding. Just thought I'd pass that along.

[GOPcapitalist]

Nice reply. De Dawg bark, de ruffi'ns run away!

May I conclude that post to be your endorsement of Mad Dawg's fabrication, which itself is more egregious than the worst of what you allege against DiLorenzo?

He claimed I had intentionally left out something important from that Lincoln quote, you know. But when one goes to the full letter from which I quoted, sure enough - what Mad Dawg claimed was there isn't there. Nor is anything even remotely like it. He made it all up. And you just endorsed him for it.

I also noticed you linked to your article about the need to check the footnotes and sources. Do you ever take your own advice?

Funny. You whine about DiLorenzo then endorse a blatant fabrication. You whine about DiLorenzo checking his sources then forget to do so yourself before endorsing Mad Dawg's fabrication. Even more amazing, you do the latter right before you post a link to your own article touting the necessity of checking footnotes!

Looks like you've inadvertently beaten yourself at your own game, Richard.

[MHGinTN]

I just want to know if you enjoyed that nasty little cover-pulling game.

[rdf]

Since there is oviously no hope of reaching an amicable and rational agreement with GOPcapitalist on this matter, I think I will simply post the two letters of Lincoln to Wallace, without commentary, and encourage anyone who wishes to think it out see the evidence himself.

This is the second letter, which Lincoln says expresses the same thoughts as the first.

*******

Dr. Edward Wallace:

Springfield, Ills. May 12. 1860

My dear Sir

Your brother, Dr. W. S. Wallace, shows me a letter of yours, in which you in which you request him to inquire if you may use a letter of mine to you, in which something is said upon the Tariff question. I do not precisely remember what I did say in that letter; but I presume I said nothing substantially different from what I shall say now.

In the days of Henry Clay I was a Henry Clay-tariff-man; and my views have undergone no material change upon that subject. I now think the Tariff question ought not to be agitated in the Chicago convention; but that all should be satisfied on that point, with a presidential candidate, whose antecedents give assurance that he would neither seek to force a tariff-law by Executive influence; nor yet to arrest a reasonable one, by a veto, or otherwise. Just such a candidate I desire shall be put in nomination. I really have no objection to these views being publicly known; but I do wish to thrust no letter before the public now, upon any subject. Save me from the appearance of obtrusion; and I do not care who sees this, or my former letter.

Yours very truly
A. LINCOLN

*****

I'll follow with the first in a moment.

[rdf]

And here is the first letter, the one that GOPcapitalist gave with his interpretation interspersed.

I give it with no comment.

*****

Dr. Edward Wallace: Clinton, Oct. 11th. 1859

My dear Sir:

I am here, just now, attending court. Yesterday, before I left Springfield, your brother, Dr. William S. Wallace, showed me a letter of yours, in which you kindly mention my name, inquire for my tariff views; and suggest the propriety of my writing a letter upon the subject.

I was an old Henry Clay tariff whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject, than on any other. I have not since changed my views. I believe yet, if we could have a moderate, carefully adjusted, protective tariff, so far acquiesed in, as to not be a perpetual subject of political strife, squabbles, charges, and uncertainties, it would be better for us.

Still, it is my opinion that, just now, the revival of that question, will not advance the cause itself, or the man who revives it.

I have not thought much upon the subject recently; but 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.

We, the old whigs, have been entirely beaten out on the tariff question; and we shall not be able to re-establish the policy, until the absence of it, shall have demonstrated the necessity for it, in the minds of men heretofore opposed to it.

With this view, I should prefer, to not now, write a public letter upon the subject. I therefo[re] wish this to be considered confidential.

I shall be very glad to receive a letter from you.

Yours truly

A. LINCOLN---

******

There you have the evidence of the private letters of any consequence.

I'll get the Pittsburg speech, too, if you want to see it. That and a speech in New Haven are all that exist, containing any significant mention of tariffs, in the several years just before Lincoln's inauguration.

Regards,

Richard F.

[Mad Dawg]

GOPCapitalist,
I in no way meant to indicate that you purposely left out the rest of the letter and I regret any language which might have led you to think I was saying you intended to deceive.

[GOPcapitalist]

Apology accepted and appreciated.

[rdf]

Let me suggest, on prevalent economic theory in the 19th Century, that you consult Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Chapters 5 and 6 of Book One. "Labour," writes Smith, in Ch. 5, "therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities." He says similar things in Ch. 6. Labor is also fundamental for Locke.

There is nothing at all surprising in any American Statesman of the first 100 years of the Republic thinking, with Locke and Smith, that labor lies at the basis of rights in property and human economic activity, and that it gives things their real value.

Cheers,

Richard F.

[GOPcapitalist]

Since there is oviously no hope of reaching an amicable and rational agreement with GOPcapitalist on this matter

There's definately hope, Richard, though it would entail your removal of a self imposed roadblock that you have given all indications of an intent to keep.

I think I will simply post the two letters of Lincoln to Wallace, without commentary, and encourage anyone who wishes to think it out see the evidence himself.

That's fair enough. I'll gladly add some more that he wrote as well.

[GOPcapitalist]

Here are two more letters from the same period on the tariff.

Private & confidential
G. Yoke Tams, Esq Springfield, Ills--- Sep. 22. 1860

My dear Sir: Your letter asking me ``Are you in favor of a Tariff & Protection to American Industry?'' is received. The convention which nominated me, by the 12th. plank of their platform, selected their position on this question; and I have declared my approval of the platform, and accepted the nomination. Now, if I were to publicly shift this position, by adding or subtracting anything, the convention would have the right, and probably would be inclined, to displace me as their candidate. And I feel confident that you, on reflection, would not wish me to give private assurances to be seen by some, and kept secret from others.

I enjoin that this shall, by no means be made public. Yours Respectfully A. LINCOLN

-----------------

To James E. Harvey
(Private and confidential.)
October 2, 1860.

My dear Sir: To comply with your request to furnish extracts from my tariff speeches is simply impossible, because none of those speeches were published. It was not fashionable here in those days to report one's public speeches. In 1844 I was on the Clay electoral ticket in this State (i.e., Illinois) and, to the best of my ability, sustained, together, the tariff of 1842 and the tariff plank of the Clay platform. This could be proven by hundreds---perhaps thousands---of living witnesses; still it is not in print, except by inference. The Whig papers of those years all show that I was upon the electoral ticket; even though I made speeches, among other things about the tariff, but they do not show what I said about it. The papers show that I was one of a committee which reported, among others, a resolution in these words:

``That we are in favor of an adequate revenue on duties from imports so levied as to afford ample protection to American industry.''

But, after all, was it really any more than the tariff plank of our present platform? And does not my acceptance pledge me to that? And am I at liberty to do more, if I were inclined? Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

[GOPcapitalist]

I'll get the Pittsburg speech, too, if you want to see it. That and a speech in New Haven are all that exist, containing any significant mention of tariffs, in the several years just before Lincoln's inauguration.

Actually, there are others where Lincoln uses terminology other than tariff. I've only had time to search briefly, but things like revenue collection, duties, and variations of the word protect are mentioned in other Lincoln works. A major theme with him was during the secession crisis, where Lincoln repeatedly spoke and wrote of the need to "collect the duties" or "collect the revenues" of seceding states. The theme continued into the war, where all of his blockade writings and speeches emphasized the same point over and over and over. The reason he kept giving was that secession had impeded the collection of duties on foreign imports. We can suppose that, in light of the fact that tariffs had just been hiked to the highest level in decades, this meant significant revenue. I'll have to spend some time, but can pull them and post them if you like.

I also find it interesting that the new haven speech is the only one I know of where Lincoln even comes close to the assertion that the tariff issue should be set aside to address the slavery issue.

All of the letters have him advocating the tariff in various degrees. Some are direct and open, others he stands behind the tariff plank of the platform. Some have him expressing hopes that he will be able to do so politically in the near future. Add the Pittsburgh speech, where he advocates in no less than direct terms the taking up of the issue as a major priority in congress, and it becomes clear that Lincoln was not willing to simply let the issue drop to address the slavery one.

[Mad Dawg]

and it becomes clear that Lincoln was not willing to simply let the issue drop to address the slavery one.

All I can say is, not to me.

I, starting out attributing neither great vice nor great virtue to Lincoln and reading what you and rdf put up, see a man who says that he approves of the kind of tariffs you discuss and that if the opportunity should present itself he would press for them. Further, the party that nominated him has a tariff plank and he does not disavow it.

But in the letters rdf put up he seems to say that he does not see success with the tariffs until those who are currently opposed to them should cease to be so.

You offer: "I believe yet, if we could have a moderate, carefully adjusted, protective tariff, so far acquiesed in, as to not be a perpetual subject of political strife, squabbles, charges, and uncertainties, it would be better for us."

That shows that Lincoln likes tariffs. Tariffs - terrif. You continue:
In other words, Lincoln first says he's an old tariff Whig whose views have not changed. Next he advocates implementing a tariff, yet not a word about it no longer being his agenda or anything of the sort.

I'm sorry that does not seem to be an advocation of implementation. He merely says again that he things they're good.As I tried to say, I can like something and wish for it, and not be ready to take steps to get it. If I win the lottery, then a Ferrari goes on the agenda. If political situation changes, then tariffs go back on the agenda.

You continue:
The letter continues, again immediately from where the previous quote left off, with a comment on the political viability of the issue.

"Still, it is my opinion that, just now, the revival of that question, will not advance the cause itself, or the man who revives it."

That sounds to me like he's taking it off the agenda. Reviving the issue now won't work. It remains a long term goal but nothing he wants to work toward at the time of writing. It's not on the list of things to do right now.

You continue describing and quoting how Lincoln imagines and hopes, in essence, that sooner or later the issue could be added to the agenda; and you write:
I think it is safe to add that at this future point, Lincoln would not have hesitated to take up the tariff issue, ....

In other words, he might put it back on the agenda later.

I was mistaken about the MENTION of slavery, but I still maintain that that was the issue that pushed the tariff off the agenda.

The reason I say the tariff issue and its merits are irrelevant is that I notice that these threads tend to wander from the lousy way DiLorenzo supports his thesis to the thesis itself. From here it looks like the argument about Lincoln is a convenient distraction from the discussion of DiLorenzo's scholarship.

Actually, Ferrier's own source conceded that the 1857 thing was an error originally made by a secondary source that DiLorenzo cited.

My point exactly.

With no sources to hand and little time to search them, had I any, I made an error. When it was pointed out. I noted it. When my language was misunderstood as making an accusation against you, I clarified and expressed regret for the infelicity of my expression. DiLorenzo describes his shelf of 60 or so volumes (as I recall) of books about Lincoln. I missed the time, if any, when he took responsibility for his errors. I think I stand up against him pretty well.

[GOPcapitalist]

All I can say is, not to me. I, starting out attributing neither great vice nor great virtue to Lincoln and reading what you and rdf put up, see a man who says that he approves of the kind of tariffs you discuss and that if the opportunity should present itself he would press for them.

That he does. He also asserts his own personal hopes that the opportunity to do so will arise in the near future. And when it did arise, he pressed for it as he said and identified it as a major priority the speech I quoted.

Further, the party that nominated him has a tariff plank and he does not disavow it.

He did not disavow it because he agreed with it. That agreement with the tariff plank predated the tariff plank as evidenced by the letters and by Lincoln's earlier career in the Whig party and Illinois legislature where he was a top advocate for the tariff.

But in the letters rdf put up he seems to say that he does not see success with the tariffs until those who are currently opposed to them should cease to be so.

Yes, and it's a perfectly consistent political statement. He did not see success for them because, at the time he wrote that letter, free trade dominated and the protectionists were in a minority in congress. Keep reading though. Right after that he says he anticipates this opposition will fall in the very near future making it possible to install a tariff.

And that's exactly what happened in 1860-61.

That shows that Lincoln likes tariffs.

As does his political history prior to that 1859 letter. If you would like, I'll post some of the statements from years prior when Lincoln was a prominent tariff advocate.

I'm sorry that does not seem to be an advocation of implementation.

Sure it is. It comes with the qualifier of political viability, but that is a given. A tariff could not be implemented and sustained if it were politically impossible in the congress' makeup to do so.

He merely says again that he things they're good.

Then says that when it becomes possible to pass one, they should do it.

As I tried to say, I can like something and wish for it, and not be ready to take steps to get it.

Or you can like something and wish for it, then prepare yourself to achieve it at some future date when achieving it becomes possible. That is what Lincoln did.

If I win the lottery, then a Ferrari goes on the agenda. If political situation changes, then tariffs go back on the agenda.

In that case, so to speak, Lincoln won the lottery. Only he also knew at the time of that letter that his chances of winning were pretty good as opposed to a shot in the darkness of you simply buying a lotto ticket.

That sounds to me like he's taking it off the agenda.

Something can remain on the agenda even though its advancer knows it to be years in the making. A communist definately has his goal of communism on his agenda, though often he knows that achieving it, if at all, will be years in the making.

Reviving the issue now won't work. It remains a long term goal but nothing he wants to work toward at the time of writing.

To the contrary. By consciously allowing the issue to mature, which is what he is doing, he is working toward achieving it. Like a good politician he knew making a bunch of noise about something he wanted wasn't always the best way to get it. Instead he strategized, and consciously so based upon that letter as evidence, of achieving it in the near future by allowing the issue to ripen and to be ready when that day comes. As history shows, that is exactly what happened - Lincoln got his tariff.

I was mistaken about the MENTION of slavery, but I still maintain that that was the issue that pushed the tariff off the agenda.

And I'll disagree, noting that the tariff was never truly pushed off the agenda. Lincoln simply decided it had a better chance if he was patient and took advantage of the right time - a political strategy, and one that later worked for him. As for the issue that made the tariff unviable in 1859 (and also viable in 1861), it was not slavery. It was Congress. More specifically it was Congress' makeup and the fact that, as of 1859, free trade was the policy. That was no longer the case shortly after though. As of 1861, the tariff had become the policy.

The reason I say the tariff issue and its merits are irrelevant is that I notice that these threads tend to wander from the lousy way DiLorenzo supports his thesis to the thesis itself. From here it looks like the argument about Lincoln is a convenient distraction from the discussion of DiLorenzo's scholarship.

It does get away from DiLorenzo, but I don't see any harm to that. DiLorenzo is still being discussed here and elsewhere. But with this, we're simply exploring an issue in greater depth that pertains to Lincoln himself. With no sources to hand and little time to search them, had I any, I made an error. When it was pointed out. I noted it.

Thank you. Your directness about that is appreciated.

[GOPcapitalist]

oops. Italics </i> off.

[GOPcapitalist]

There is nothing at all surprising in any American Statesman of the first 100 years of the Republic thinking, with Locke and Smith, that labor lies at the basis of rights in property and human economic activity, and that it gives things their real value.

Surely you must acknowledge the difference between Locke's theory of property and the later development of the labor theory of value concept. The two are not anywhere near the same thing, and from what Lincoln's works include, all suggestions are that his leanings were toward the latter, not that using Locke as a role model is anything better.

The most specific commentary Lincoln gives on the subject is found in some notes he made for a speech around the time of his congressional term. Locke's concerns lie with the establishment of property. The labor theory's concern lies with securing to the laborer the fruits of his production that have purported been removed from him by the employment process and those who carry out the business of that place of employment. Lincoln's own wording of it put it as the following: "To [secure] to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government." Lincoln divided labor into three categories, asserting only the first's legitimacy and of the rest classifying them as "heavy pensioners upon the first, robbing it of a large portion of it's just rights." Lincoln saw the tariff policy as the means by which the government achieved this "worthy object."

I notice you also maintain your latch onto John Locke, also mentioning Smith. Please note that with Smith I do not take issue. His economic thinking is indisputably of practical origin. It functions about as well as can be expected in its congruence with common sense and liberty, and the capitalist principles that derived from it are clearly the preferable of the economic theories available.

But with Locke, i've said it before and I'll say it again, it is difficult to have him without the undesirable consequences of empiricism. Always keep that in mind while reading him. And if you really want to see what it's all about, read David Hume's Enquiry.

[rdf]

I've taught Locke and Smith for more than 20 years, and I'm perfectly content to let all I have posted stand.

Moreover, I don't think our to and fro about these things does us or anyone else any good.

As to the past, I think the national consensus about Lincoln, that he was wise and great, is true.

Concerning current political matters, I suspect that we agree about much, and we should work for the good we can do in our own times.

Best to you and all,

Richard F.

[GOPcapitalist]

I've taught Locke and Smith for more than 20 years, and I'm perfectly content to let all I have posted stand.

I only ask that you explore it further. My own first experience with Locke was one embracing much of his theories, which I had continued to do until fairly recently. Aways back I studied David Hume in an overview and then thoroughly, reaching the problems he creates, how he creates them, and what havoc they have caused ever since.

Shortly thereafter I turned my attention to combatting Hume's arguments by attempting to poke holes in them - something I still work on. In a way, Hume is a sort of point in the history of thought upon which things turn, therefore overturning what has come of his system lies in deconstructing that system.

All the while it became increasingly prominent how significantly the works of Hume rested upon those of Locke, themselves sharing in the same disastrous results. This, along with the prodding of friends similarly versed in Locke, pushed inevitably to the question of his theory of government's relationship to the inescapable problems created by empiricism. I now conclude that his clear basis in empiricism renders it impossible to escape empiricism, and the problems it creates, when one latches onto Locke just as is the case with Hume.

An alternative, as I have noted, must be found in a refinement of the theories other than Locke.

Not that there isn't anything to be gained from reading Locke or Hume and quite to the contrary. This is especially so with Hume, who advocates little more than Locke's system realized to its logical ends. A philosophy professor I once studied under often remarked that he had turned more people to Christianity by making them read Sartre than any Christian philosopher, simply by exposing them to a straight forward expression of the bleak alternative. I believe the same is true with Hume, and therefore by him Locke. Locke, and even sometimes Hume, are used as shelters for conservatives, claimed as our own philosophical foundings much as the left picks its icons of Marx, Sartre, Nietzsche, and the feminist theorists. But in reality, they are merely predecessors. Locke leads to Hume. Hume leads to skeptical chaos. Kant attempts to recover chaos and ends up worstening the decline into chaos. Nietzsche collapses Kant, forwarding chaos. Chaos comes to reign, forwarding cultural relativism and economic Marxism. Then the thinly vieled left wing system pursued as a means of facilitating "anything goes" style leftism, itself maintained by nothing more than might makes right, emerges complete.

That's where "intellectual" leftism is today and that's what we're up against. Since it is what we're up against, we must beat it with the alternative. And that alternative cannot be found in Hume, and inescapably by him Locke, which is an integral part of the source of what we're up against in the first place. We will never beat the bilge that remains in the wake of post-modernism by latching onto that which brought about post-modernism in the first place, as it will always end up as exactly that which we are supposedly trying to combat.

And that is why I reject Locke and urge fellow conservatives who think they've found something in him to examine him more closely before concluding him to be the answer. He is not. And we are never going to advance over the left as a movement if we are all convinced that he is.