In the portion of his book dealing with Mark Neely, DiLorenzo does two things: first, he explains and interprets Neely’s book, Fate of Liberty: “In 'Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Rights,' Mark E. Neely Jr. observed that as early as the 1840s Lincoln, one of the most ambitious politicians in American history, was seething with resentment over the fact that the Constitution stood in the way of the Whig economic program and his vaunted American System.” Second, Dilorenzo provides a quote from Neely’s book, in support of his interpretation: “At that time, writes Neely, 'Lincoln appeared to be marching steadily toward a position of gruff and belittling impatience with constitutional arguments against the beleaguered Whig program.’” However, as you pointed out in your reply on WND, this quote does not support Dilorenzo’s interpretation, for it merely says that Lincoln was frustrated, not with the Constitution itself, but with the constitutional arguments of his opponents. Moreover, your reply has shown that Neely himself, in the very same work and on the very same page from which Dilorenzo has extracted this quotation, wrote that Lincoln thought that the Bank (one element of the Whig program) was Constitutional.
In his most recent reply to you on lewrockwell.com, Dilorenzo repeats the quote from Neely: “Lincoln exhibited a ‘gruff and belittling impatience’ over constitutional arguments that had stood in the way of his cherished mercantilist economic agenda.” He then mentions your claim that he misinterpreted Neely: “Quackenbush takes me to task for allegedly implying that Neely wrote that Lincoln opposed the Constitution and not just constitutional arguments.” But he neglects to repeat his explanation and interpretation of Neely’s work, which provided the basis for your charge: “Mark E. Neely Jr. observed that as early as the 1840s Lincoln, one of the most ambitious politicians in American history, was seething with resentment over the fact that the Constitution stood in the way of the Whig economic program and his vaunted American System.” Rather than trying to defend his interpretation of Neely, Dilorenzo simply ignores it.
Dilorenzo then takes sophistry to a new level. He says that he argues “at great length in the book that Lincoln did resent the Constitution.” Well, so what. The fact that Dilorenzo argues that Lincoln did resent the Constitution doesn’t give him license to misquote Neely to that effect. Dilorenzo continues: “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.” Again, the views of Randall and Sprague on Lincoln’s view of Constitution are irrelevant. You did not claim that Dilorenzo misrepresented their views. You claimed that he misrepresented Neely’s. What is at issue, then, is what Neely, not Randall and Sprague, thought of Lincoln’s attitude towards the Constitution. And as for Neely’s Fate of Liberty, if some other part of that work indicated that Neely thought that Lincoln was “seething with resentment” of the Constitution itself, then why didn’t Dilorenzo choose to quote that part, instead of the sentence that he did quote, which, as you have shown, doesn’t support his interpretation of Neely in the slightest? Perhaps the reason why Dilorenzo didn’t quote some other text from Fate of Liberty to support his interpretation of Neely is that such a text doesn’t exist. In Fate of Liberty, Neely does not imply that Lincoln was frustrated with the Constitution itself, he merely says that Lincoln was irritated by the tendentious arguments of his political opponents, who, in Lincoln’s view, failed to recognize the constitutionality of his programs. You established that in your reply, quoting Neely’s Fate of Liberty a number of times to this effect.
This seems to be a pattern for Dilorenzo: his arguments are so weak that he feels the need to buttress them by appealing to the authority of famous and respected historians. However, these historians don’t agree with him, so he is forced to misrepresent their positions. Another example of this, as you well know, is his treatment of Roy Basler.
As you demonstrated in your reply, Dilorenzo totally misinterprets Basler’s “lacking in effectiveness” sentence. Dilorenzo defends that misinterpretation in his most recent reply, ridiculously claiming that Basler believed that Lincoln’s words on slavery were ineffective “because Lincoln’s actions did not match his impressive rhetoric.” But your reply proved that “the actual quotation clearly implies that – even in this single speech, Basler's only topic – Lincoln's words on slavery were not ineffective on the crucial questions ‘of the extension of slavery, of preserving the essential central idea of human equality, and of respecting the Negro as a human being.’”
What is even more egregious, however, is Dilorenzo’s attempted defense of his claim that Basler’s text implied that Lincoln was “insincere.” As you mention in your reply, Dilorenzo wrote that Basler "wrote that Lincoln barely ever mentioned the topic prior to 1854 and even then, he did not seem at all sincere. 'His words lacked effectiveness,' writes Basler." Here is a concise summary of Dilorenzo’s defense of his claim in his lewrockwell.com column: Lincoln contradicted himself many times by making racist remarks, etc. Therefore, his public comments about slavery and the natural rights of the Declaration were insincere. Therefore, according to Dilorenzo, it makes sense to interpret Basler’s quote that Lincoln’s words were “lacking in effectiveness” to mean that they were also insincere, since Lincoln was in fact insincere.
First of all, I don’t think that Dilorenzo has in any way established that Lincoln was insincere. Second, even if Lincoln were insincere, that doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to interpret Basler’s quote to mean that. One might just as well say that because Lincoln was tall, Balser’s quote about “lacking in effectiveness” also implied that Lincoln had greater than average height.
To sum up, I think that the following is an abstract version of Dilorenzo’s method of argument:
He claims that a brilliant and renowned historian says that “A is B.”
You point out that the historian in fact said no such thing.
He replies by saying that, even apart from his quotation of the historian, he himself proved that “A is B” elsewhere in his book. But even assuming arguendo that Dilorenzo did prove it somewhere else in his book, that still doesn’t justify his misquoting the historian.
To take an analogy: Let’s say a constitutional scholar wrote a book against Roe. v Wade in which he totally misquoted Justice White, a staunch opponent of Roe, and implied that White thought Roe v Wade was correctly decided and regretted writing his dissent. Let’s also assume that the scholar was later criticized for his misquotation of Justice White. It wouldn’t be sufficient for the author to defend himself by saying that the rest of his book definitively proved that Roe v Wade was rightly decided. Even assuming that his book did prove that, it doesn’t give him license to misquote White.
But not only would the scholar be wrong in thinking that because Roe v Wade was rightly decided, he could misquote White to that effect, he would also be wrong about Roe in the first place: in fact, it’s bad constitutional law.
And as the hypothetical constitutional scholar stands to Justice White, so does DiLorenzo stand to Lincoln.
Lincoln's own statements on secession, race, colonization, and tariff's are...damning.
Lincoln was a tyrant, who subverted the Constitution, and destroyed the seperation of powers, which held the national government in check.
Those who "deify" Lincoln disregard the substantial, historical evidence that, he was the founder of the destruction of the American ideal of limited, decentralised government.
For additional referance, I would reccommend the excellent work, "American Ceasar", and the fine works of Dr. Clyde Wilson. History is a search for truth. Unfortunately, in historical context, the victors get to write the history. Truth is sometimes illusive.
David, I have a library for you to begin with... You may have the disadvantage of a life-time of government school prejudice to overcome, but keep digging. Even the victor can not overcome a desire to learn.
For Southern Independence Larry Salley