Posted on 05/08/2002 9:17:51 AM PDT by Korth
I have now interviewed both Dr. Tom DiLorenzo and Dr. Richard Ferrier regarding our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. I entered the controversy intrigued, but really without a dog in the fight. As I have too often said, "It is not a question of who is right or wrong but what is right or wrong that counts."
I am not a Lincoln hater and I don't idolize the man. Like most of you, I am an interested student.
As usual, both sides have merits and shortfalls. However, in the wake of the two interviews, myriad e-mails and having read, "The Real Lincoln" and the Lincoln-Douglas debates, I have reached personal conclusions.
But, frankly, my conclusions are tainted. I have a few pet peeves. Honesty, to me, is important both in content and in character. I consider "Duty, Honor, Country" as more than a cute phrase, but a credo. Oaths are important, significant, and not to be entered into or broken cavalierly.
When any person swears a sacred oath to "preserve and protect the Constitution," they have made a lifelong commitment. I am routinely annoyed and offended by people who take the oath and subsequently (by thought, deed and action) undermine, abrogate or attempt to alter the very document that they have sworn to "preserve and protect."
I consider those who violate that oath as being guilty of fraud, perjury and treason.
When I interviewed DiLorenzo I told him he had provided me with an epiphany. I have frequently noted that when the framers were forming the republic, Jefferson and Hamilton had a long series of debates. Jefferson was arguing for states' rights, and Hamilton wanted a big federal bureaucracy – like we have now. Historically, Jefferson won the debate.
I have been trying to figure out at what point in our history Jefferson lost. I used to think it was inertia building until 1913, and then FDR. But actually, Lincoln should get the credit for defeating Jefferson for Hamilton.
DiLorenzo said, "One of the main themes of my book is that Abraham Lincoln was the political son of Alexander Hamilton … Lincoln took up the Hamiltonian mantle of big, centralized government, centralized planning, autocratic leadership. The great debates between the Jeffersonians and the Hamiltonians were ended at gunpoint under the directorship of Abraham Lincoln, in my view. And I think that debate was ended by 1865."
I am more convinced than ever that DiLorenzo is right about that.
Ferrier told me his complaints with DiLorenzo were "falsehood in details, sloppiness of scholarship and a fundamentally wrong-headed view of the role of Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence, and American history and our political philosophy."
I'll get to the "falsehood" charge, but "a fundamentally wrong-headed view of the role of Lincoln" is really a kinda high-handed and pretentious way of saying, "I'm right and he's wrong." Although DiLorenzo didn't say so, I suspect he probably feels the same way about Ferrier and his other critics. By extension and association, Ferrier also must feel Professor Walter Williams has a "fundamentally wrong-headed view of the role of Lincoln."
Ferrier made some good points. However, in my view, in one defense, he further diminishes his idol as disingenuous, calculating and adroit at parsing "weasel words."
In discussing slavery, he confirmed Lincoln said, "I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between white and black races, and I have never said anything to the contrary." He corrected the DiLorenzo citation, but said, "Lincoln, who was a lawyer and was careful with his words, did not say 'I do not believe in that equality. I do not think it is a good thing.' He said, 'I have no purpose to introduce it.' Those are the words of a careful lawyerly politician …"
In other words Lincoln was using Clintonian verbiage carefully qualifying the definition of what "is" is. So, when Lincoln said, "I have no purpose," Ferrier says he meant, "I don't at the moment intend to bring about such equality." And if he had said anything else in Illinois in the 1850s, he couldn't have been elected to dogcatcher. So Lincoln (according to Dr. Ferrier) was being duplicitous – in other words, dishonest.
Both these professors score points in the debate. DiLorenzo apparently misstates citations and uses quotes to support his position and ignores quotes that undercut it. By the way, Ferrier likewise seems comfortable ignoring facts that contradict his preconceived opinion.
DiLorenzo and Ferrier are academics and scholars. I am not. However, a lot of the things Lincoln did were specifically designed to abrogate, eviscerate and destroy the very document to which he swore an oath. For Ferrier and company to say, "Well, gosh, the other guys were doing it too," is not an adequate defense.
Karen DeCoster has been accused of excess in her criticism of Lincoln. However, in my view, she is right when she says he was, "A conniving and manipulative man … he was nowhere near what old guard historians would have us believe."
There is another former left coaster, raised in the dyank gummint disinformation farms called "publik schules" who had his epiphany years ago and then sat down and connected the dots in much the same manner that Metcalfe has done. His name is Greg Loren Durand and his opus explains EXACTLY what Metcalf and others need to know.
That opus is AMERICA'S CAESAR.
Mr. Metcalf you have had the brass to interview, Devvy Kidd, Joseph Bannister, Bob Schulz and Tom DiLorenzo. Please keep the skeer on these pigs and interview Greg Durand next!
We may yet save this nation.
Which brings up an interesting question. When exactly did VA and NC, along with the other states to join the Confederacy later, decide to join? And exactly why was it they joined again? Something lincoln had done, it just alludes me at the moment....
As an abstract proposition, I don't care about pax americana; I would not have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of American lives in WWI, Korea, Vietnam and other lower cost ventures. The cold war was an ultimate outgrowth of the failed internationalist policies of Woodrow Wilson; Truman could have ordered the eighth army to march down the autobahn to Berlin in 1948 and and avoided the whole thing. Hitler and WWII were an outgrowth of Wilson's policy errors in initiating our involvement in WWI.
The constitution as a religious document? It ought to operate as a contract among the assembled states setting forth the terms on which we are assembled. The flow of circumstances may well have exactly that result. There is a widening gap among the priorities of the various states to which some are likely to wake up in the not far distant future.
The defense of Maryland required invasion of constitutional rights only because Lincoln started the war in the first place. Sure, in the event of attack by foreign enemy we may need to override in the interest of national security--I view Lincoln's abrogation of the Constitution to be far broader than necessary.
The money system? I don't see any real need for any national (or state for that matter) money system not tied directly (as opposed to through a resrve ratio system) to a specie value. To the contrary, our existing system is a continuing threat to the existence of the republic.
THANK YOU MR. METCALF!
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FROM THE INTERVIEW:
When I interviewed DiLorenzo I told him he had provided me with an epiphany. I have frequently noted that when the framers were forming the republic, Jefferson and Hamilton had a long series of debates. Jefferson was arguing for states' rights, and Hamilton wanted a big federal bureaucracy – like we have now. Historically, Jefferson won the debate.
I have been trying to figure out at what point in our history Jefferson lost. I used to think it was inertia building until 1913, and then FDR. But actually, Lincoln should get the credit for defeating Jefferson for Hamilton.
AMEN!
In other words Lincoln was using Clintonian verbiage carefully qualifying the definition of what "is" is.
A POINT I HAVE BEEN MAKING FOR YEARS ON FR!
APE WAS THE KLINK OF HIS ERA!
DiLorenzo and Ferrier are academics and scholars. I am not. However, a lot of the things Lincoln did were specifically designed to abrogate, eviscerate and destroy the very document to which he swore an oath. For Ferrier and company to say, "Well, gosh, the other guys were doing it too," is not an adequate defense.
HERE HERE MR METCALF!!!
Most of the people on this forum know NEVER to trust a democrap.
I just want them to know, from your own words, that you are one.
Cheers!
PINKO ALERT
Do these people know how you and your fellow travelers vote?
Here is your reply to Leesylvanian from another thread:
==================================
Leesylvanian:
Keep in mind when dealing with WP that you're dealing with a man who favors the government's rights/authority over those of the people. He voted for Clinton twice. 'Nuff said!
Wlat (WhiskeyPapa):
Well, I've never said I voted for Clinton twice, so I am glad you will be glad to post a retraction.What I said was that I had never voted for a Republican presidential candidate. I voted for John Anderson in 1980. In '84 I voted Democratic. Same in '88. In '92 I DID vote for Clinton, although I was for Perot until he went batty. In'96 I didn't vote. In '00, I did vote for Al Gore. --Walt
780 posted on 2/28/02 10:49 AM Pacific by WhiskeyPapa
Hey quit picking on Wlat's (WhiskeyPapa the socialist's) buddy!
Here is what Kuntsler has to say about it; expect the worm to squirm!:
"North Carolina went to war reluctantly, but few states did more to defend the South than the citizens and soldiers of the Tar Heel state. At first, they watched sadly and sympathetically as one southern state after another seceded. Only after Abraham Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to invade the South did North Carolina secede from the Union. The Carolinians would not allow northern troops to cross their borders for the purpose of making war on fellow Southerners." --Mort Kunstler
And what makes you think it is going to. We sure as hell haven't see it yet.
Precisely. No war until states ACTUALLY seceded!
Before secession, they were part of the whole, and had recourse within the Fed. After, war was not only an option, but the best option.
Unfortunately it wasn't. If you read the northern papers of the day, before lincoln shut them down illegally and immediately prior to the war, most editorials were in favor of letting the South go. However, after the attack at Charleston, the cry came specifically for regaining the monies lost at the Charleston port. Now contrary to the belief of some around here, documentation clearly shows that the north relied on the monies from Southern ports. Not suprisingly, the loudest call for war in the lincoln cabinet was from none other than Sam Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury and the head honcho over how the tariff money was spent
This is your idea of peace?
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