Posted on 05/07/2002 11:31:24 AM PDT by WhiskeyPapa
The Unreal Lincoln: Loyola College Professor Flunks Out
By ERIK ROOT
A war of unkind words has afflicted the WorldNetDaily website over a forthcoming book by Loyola College economics professor Thomas DiLorenzo entitled The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War. The controversy began when a friend of DiLorenzo’s, Ilana Mercer, wrote a glowing review of the yet to be released book claiming that, if anything, Lincoln left a legacy of corruption. Richard Ferrier and David Quackenbush of the Declaration Foundation responded to the review (since the book was not released) with all smoke, no gun. DiLorenzo then jumped into the fray with more ad hominem which prompted Quackenbush to write apparent inaccuracies. The debate seemed to have ended with DiLorenzo’s let the ad hominem begin. According to WorldNetDaily, both DiLorenzo and Quackenbush will get one more chance to respond to each other after the book officially releases.
Most of the unkind words happen to come from DiLorenzo who tries to turn the tables claiming that all the ad hominem attacks emanate from his critics. This does not preclude him from bellowing Ferrier and Quackenbush are "irrational," hysterical, ill-mannered, "ideologically blind zealots," etc., at the same time he faults them for personal smears. But that is the preferred tactic when a professor’s peers find his "scholarly research" wanting. Charming indeed.
In the WorldNetDaily correspondence it is evident that DiLorenzo has not considered in a dispassionate manner the meaning of the words that Ferrier and Quackenbush utilize: statesmanship, reason, prudence, natural right, compact. Ferrier and Quackenbush use these words deliberately and purposely; they must be understood before one can comprehend the Founding as well its fulfillment in Lincoln. DiLorenzo glosses over these words as if they had no meaning and at one point irrationally invokes the word reason to discredit his detractors. This is modern rationalism on display. Despite DiLorenzo’s lucubration, I will address those points not covered by Declaration Foundation representatives since they did an ample job of refuting Dilorenzo on that which they chose to address. Since I too have not read the book (though I have requested a review copy from the publisher) I will devote myself to what Dilorenzo wrote in response to his critics. Ultimately, DiLorenzo has not uncovered anything new about Lincoln, but is parroting tired and old arguments which emanated many years ago from Paleo-cons and Libertarians.
As with most scholars who attack Lincoln, they do not base their research on primary sources but on secondary. When they refer to primary material they take it out of context. Let us first consider his use of secondary sources. He invokes Roy Basler (the editor of The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln), Pulitzer Prize winning Lincoln biographer David Donald, H.L. Mencken, 1000 northern newspapers, Clinton Rossiter, and finally abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. This list is curious and lends credence to the impression that DiLorenzo has not considered the totality of the evidence, or that he understands the differences between abolitionism and the Founding itself. In other words, DiLorenzo seems to understand Lincoln better than Lincoln understood himself. We ought to be wary of such arrogance.
Against his secondary sources, there are a cloud of witnesses. To name a few: David Potter, Don Fehrenbacher, Lord Charnwood, Charles Kesler, Thomas G. West, and ultimately, the foremost scholar on Lincoln alive today, Harry V. Jaffa. It appears that DiLorenzo has not weighed anything written by Jaffa (or anyone else in the forgoing list) for he answers most every objection DiLorenzo raises, and did so almost 50 years ago.
DiLorenzo claims Lincoln was not sincere about slavery before 1854 and barely mentioned it before that time. He enlists Garrison’s opinion to emphasize that Lincoln was opportunistic and cared not a wit about slavery before 1854. Garrison said that Lincoln had not a drop of anti-slavery blood in him. However, Lord Charnwood (to name but one biographer) describes a different Lincoln when the future president and some friends happened upon a New Orleans slave auction in 1831. Charnwood writes that they viewed that event with disdain and that the people viewed slavery with "horror" in the "home circle." Fehrenbacher is just one scholar who catalogues the fact that the southern opinion of slavery changed from a necessary evil to a positive good. By the 1850s the issue of slavery was a consuming topic not only for Lincoln, but the entire Union. Still, we do not hear from the Loyola professor of any opportunistic slavery proponents. If it was not a consuming topic there would not have been an increase in proslavery literature prior to Lincoln’s entry into national politics. Proslavery William and Mary professor, Thomas Roderick Dew, would not have seen fit to write treatises defending the institution beginning in the 1830s. Similarly, John C. Calhoun declared in the late 1830s-40s that the Founding was defective and that blacks deserved enslavement. This proliferation of pro-slavery opinion is what forced Lincoln to address the subject increasingly as the 1850s approached.
Like the secessionists, abolitionists rejected the Revolution. They believed that there was something inherently racist, so to speak, about the Founding. In principle, both the slave-holding states and the abolitionists thought it defective. In this sense they were on the same side. Garrison faulted Lincoln because he wanted to keep the Union together; Lincoln emphasized that the Union could only last if it adhered to the principles of the Founding. Abolitionists wished to throw out slavery via unconstitutional means and the South wished to secede via the same. Therefore, to invoke Garrison as a witness to Lincoln’s lack of dedication to emancipation is faulty and a stretch at best. It only demonstrates DiLorenzo’s lack of understanding about the era. The abolitionists wanted to effect their ends, republic be damned (and incidentally, this is the major problem with the abolitionist movement for their desire would have done more to entrench slavery). These undercurrents underscore the Lyceum Speech which (contrary to Dilorenzo’s ebullient assertions) gives insight into Lincoln’s political thought, and by extension, slavery, way before 1854. The year was 1838.
Like his 1842 Temperance Address, in the speech before the Young Men’s Lyceum, slavery does not hold the predominant position that it does in his later speeches. According to Jaffa, Lincoln is more concerned with the overarching problem of evil passions of which slavery is but one. In other words, the evils of slavery are no less addressed in these speeches than in his later utterances. The passions, if left to rule, are ultimately destructive:
...if the laws be continually despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property, are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the Government is the natural consequence; and to that, sooner or later, it must come.
Here then, is one point at which danger may be expected.
The question recurs "how shall we fortify against it?" The answer is simple. Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor; – let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children’s liberty. Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap – let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; – let it be written in Primmers, spelling books, and in Almanacs; – let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars."
The rule of law, not mob law, is the counteracting agent to arbitrary rule. The rule of law in the union points to an abstract truth without which it would mean nothing and would be mutable. Lincoln detected Americans were straying from that abstract truth articulated by the Founders when he said in the same speech that that the Founding principles "are [now] decayed, and crumbled away." America needs to be re-baptized, if you will, in the abstract truth of the Founding. This consistency is evident in the 1859 letter to Henry Pierce:
But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation. One would start with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society. And yet they are denied, and evaded, with no small show of success. One dashingly calls them ‘glittering generalities’; another bluntly calls them ‘self evident lies’; and still others insidiously argue that they apply only to "superior races."
What is the self-evident truth that Calhoun thought was a lie? All men are created equal. Despite DiLorenzo’s "discovery" that slavery had little to do with the Civil War, primary documents contradict him. Alexander Stephens, the vice-president of the Confederacy, confirmed the predominance of the slavery issue in his Cornerstone speech:
But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other – though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution – African slavery as it exists amongst us – the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago.
So much for slavery not being the central issue of the war. It is clear from the above speech that southern opinion of the equality of human beings changed. Slavery was not a necessary evil, but was now a positive good that God had sanctioned. DiLorenzo fails to even acknowledge this fact and this makes his entire work questionable. He goes further and falsifies Lincoln’s record in so many instances that this response would be more prolix if I addressed every point he misconstrued. In the face of the preponderance of the evidence, it appears DiLorenzo’s political agenda is clouding his judgment. Ultimately, we have to wonder whether this professor considered everything before he wrote the book, or even if he understands complex political thought. In the end, what was in Lincoln’s heart? Only he and God know. What we do have before us are Lincoln’s words and his actions. Each is consistent with the other provided we keep his words in context. This Dilorenzo refuses to do, and that makes his work apocryphal.
Root is Local Government Editor for Carolina Journal, the monthly newspaper of the John Locke Foundation, also available on-line at CarolinaJournal.com.
What it all boils down to is this: did the South have every right to secede from the Union? Absolutely! The Constitution does not forbid states to secede. Arguing over whether or not it was about slavery is a moot point as far as I'm concerned. Lincoln and his congressional cronies had no authority to prevent the Southern states-- states that had voluntarily joined the Union under the premise of reassuming their soverignty should the need arise-- from willingly leaving the Union.
So, given that the states had every right to secede and Lincoln had no authority to stop them, he successfully trashed the Constitution. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter what he thought of slavery. He used his position of power to further his own vision of what the "Union" should be. Need we point out that the secession of the South would not have destroyed the Union? The United States would have continued to exist, albeit with 13 or so fewer states.
From a constitutional standpoint Lincoln was wrong to invade the South, and that fact alone makes him a bad president. The only way anyone can believe he was right would be to read into the Constitution something that simply isn't there. No one can deny that since 1865 we have seen more powers taken from the states and given to the "federal" government. (Actually, it's more of a national government now.) Lincoln's personal war was one of the worst crimes ever perpetrated on the people of this nation.
The Constitution delegates to the Congress the right to provide for the common defense and general welfare.
It also requires the feds to guarantee a republican form of government in every state, and states that federal laws are supreme to state laws, anything in the laws of any state notwithstanding.
The Militia Act of 1792 requires that U.S. law operate in all the states.
Shoehorn secession into all that.
Walt
Fantasy.
The Militia Act --assumes-- that the state government has been perverted or overthrown. It was passed at the request of George Washington.
It was one of the grounds cited by the Supreme Court in 1862 for the propriety of President Lincoln's actions. President Lincoln was required by his oath to resist the overthrow of the lawful government.
I don't care what you heard as a toddler.
Walt
The states that seceded did so using the same republican principles upon which our entire system of government is based. You might have a point if a small faction of rebels had actually overthrown their state's government. The truth is that a majority of the duly elected representatives of the people in the state legislature voted to secede.
It's all the reply this piece of pap deserves. But as long as you're all fired up to defend the idiocy, please list for me a) the "big bureaucracy" that Alexander Hamilton advocated and established; b) the steps Jefferson took to dismantle this infrastructure during his tenure as President; and c) the role Lincoln played in resurrecting the Hamiltonian Leviathan.
And yes, Lincoln did destroy the decentralized Republic the founders envisioned.
The "Founders" were a diverse group with many different "visions", backgrounds, and opinions. Some wanted a decentralized republic, others desired a more centralized nation-state. The genius of the Constitution was to create a federal system with attributes of both types of republic. Pure Jeffersonianism was never obtained by any state in the history of the world -- a plutocratic oligarchy, propped up by the stolen labor of others, in which leisured gentlemen farmers contemplated great philosophical thoughts. A ludicrous basis for a system of government, then and now.
But even so, Metcaff's caricature of the Hamiltonian-Jeffersonian debate is simplistic and silly in the extreme.
So my response is inadequate, huh? ROFL!!!
That situation is addressed by the language of the act.
"And it be further enacted, That whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by this act, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia of such state to suppress such combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed. And if the militia of a state, where such combinations may happen, shall refuse, or be insufficient to suppress the same, it shall be lawful for the President, if the legislatures of the United States be not in session, to call forth and employ such numbers of the militia of any other state or states most convenient thereto, as may be necessary, and the use of militia, so to be called forth, may be continued, if necessary, until the expiration of thirty days after the commencement of the ensuing session."
Walt
The act authorizes the president to use the militia of the several states to ensure that it -is- part of the United States.
What this means is that the concept of unilateral state secession cannot be supported in U.S. law.
Walt
Jefferson Davis didn't think so.
"Conscription dramatized a fundamental paradox in the Confederate war effort: the need for Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian ends. Pure Jeffersonians could not accept this. The most outspoken of them, Joseph Brown of Georgia, denounced the draft as a "dangerous usurpation by Congress of the reserved rights of the states...at war with all the principles for which Georgia entered into the revolution." In reply Jefferson Davis donned the mantle of Hamilton. The Confederate Constitution, he pointed out to Brown, gave Congress the power "to raise and support armies" and to "provide for the common defense." It also contained another clause (likewise copied from the U.S. Constitution) empowering Congress to make all laws "necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers." Brown had denied the constitutionality of conscription because the Constitution did not specifically authorize it. This was good Jeffersonian doctrine, sanctified by generations of southern strict constructionists. But in Hamiltonian language, Davis insisted that the "necessary and proper" clause legitimized conscription. No one could doubt the necessity "when our very existance is threatened by armies vastly superior in numbers." Therefore "the true and only test is to enquire whether the law is intended and calculated to carry out the object...if the answer be in the affirmative, the law is constitutional."
--Battle Cry of Freedom, James McPherson P.433
Your position is fantasy. If the federal government can coerce the states in the matter of conscription, why not secession?
Walt
Once again our debate has come full circle. The concept of unilateral state secession doesn't have to be supported in U.S. law. A state that has seceded is no longer bound by U.S. law.
Perhaps you would like to address the fact that there was nothing in English law that supported the right of a colony to exercise unilateral secession. From that perspective the colonists were nothing but filthy rebels who deserved to be ground into the dirt and forced back into submission just like Lincoln did in the South.
You're opening another can of worms. The Constitution only allows Congress to conscript the militias from the various states, not individual citizens. The drafting of individuals was wrong in both the North and the South. But let's save the debate over conscription for another thread.
Fantasy.
The Militia Act --assumes-- that the state government has been perverted or overthrown. It was passed at the request of George Washington.
It was one of the grounds cited by the Supreme Court in 1862 for the propriety of President Lincoln's actions. President Lincoln was required by his oath to resist the overthrow of the lawful government.
So, you're saying that we've had a National government, not a Federal government, for over 200 years!? Do you even know the difference!?
That in itself is the argument in a nutshell. What was the south to do? Add another amendment to force the northern states to abide by the Constitutional agreement? And if that failed, add another, and another?
What you overlook is the fact that the colonists were victorious filthy rebels, while the confederates were losing filthy rebels. That's the first difference. In both cases the parties entered into rebellion. But the colonists also did not pretend that their actions were permitted under British law. They knew that they were taking a chance with their necks, they knew that they would have to fight for their freedoms, and they didn't complain about it. That's the second difference.
And you seem at the same time to want to prevent them from knowing the truth about abraham Lincoln.
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