Thomas DiLorenzo: Author of The Real Lincoln

General Lee

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You thought all of what you posted up without any references?
My opinions are my own, yes nobody taught me to say what I do I formed these ideas of mine based on a wide variety of information from various times of reading and research, I never encountered one book that made all of my points.
 

5fish

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Very funny,

They forgot another of his books... Lincoln Unmasked

In his reappraisal of the famed president, DiLorenzo is highly critical of Lincoln. Within the book he argues that states within the union had the right at the time of the American Civil War to secede and that the more centralized government that emerged after the war was incompatible with democracy. DiLorenzo also claims that most scholars of the Civil War are biased in their approach to the history because, as DiLorenzo reminds the reader, "in war the victors get to write the history". Dilorenzo also argues that Lincoln was opposed to racial equality, and that many abolitionists, including Lysander Spooner, bitterly hated him.[2]
 

O' Be Joyful

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They forgot another of his books... Lincoln Unmasked

In his reappraisal of the famed president, DiLorenzo is highly critical of Lincoln. Within the book he argues that states within the union had the right at the time of the American Civil War to secede and that the more centralized government that emerged after the war was incompatible with democracy. DiLorenzo also claims that most scholars of the Civil War are biased in their approach to the history because, as DiLorenzo reminds the reader, "in war the victors get to write the history". Dilorenzo also argues that Lincoln was opposed to racial equality, and that many abolitionists, including Lysander Spooner, bitterly hated him.[2]
 

O' Be Joyful

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The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, by Thomas J. DiLorenzo; When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, by Charles Adams


(snip)

DiLorenzo and Adams regard Lincoln, like Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster before him, as a one-dimensional politician whose "real agenda" was to create a mercantilist economic order of central banking, discriminatory taxation for the protection of northern industry, and corporate-welfare subsidies (internal improvements). In this interpretation Lincoln was a mythical "great emancipator," a racist white supremacist who did not really care about the well being of Negro slaves. His abiding ambition was "the consolidation of state power"(DiLorenzo, 53).
It is not that a case cannot be made analyzing Lincoln's career from a public choice perspective that views the exercise of political power through the lens of economic calculation. It is that the dogmatic, undiscriminating libertarianism of these authors precludes any realistic consideration of the complexity of political life as it manifestly appears in the historical record. Methodologically, this takes the form of substituting mere assertion for documentary evidence. DiLorenzo, for example, describing Lincoln's "real agenda," writes: "In virtually every one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln made it a point to champion the nationalization of money and to demonize Jackson and the Democrats for their opposition to it" (68). This will come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the debates, which were primarily concerned with the slavery question and matters related to it.
Perhaps the clearest illustration of the kind of reasoning upon which these accounts depend can be seen in the discussion of the secession crisis. Both authors claim that Lincoln provoked the South into war in order to adopt a protective tariff policy favoring northern business interests. Proof of his motivation is found in a statement from Lincoln's first inaugural address, that "The power confided to me, will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion—no using of force against, or among, the people anywhere." According to DiLorenzo, this means that "To Lincoln, slavery was just another political issue subject to compromise. But protectionist tariffs—the keystone of the Republican Party—were nonnegotiable" (237).
To be sure, the tariff laws were profoundly significant, and not simply because of the economic significance of tax revenues for the support of government. Rather law enforcement was an essential attribute of the struggle over national sovereignty, which was the underlying issue in the slavery controversy. Secession elevated that conflict into public view as the paramount issue in American politics. Secession forced a showdown, and neither side was willing to compromise. The stand-off can be regarded from a neutral perspective that accords moral equivalence to the rival claims of Union and Confederate nationality. It is a strangely ahistorical kind of libertarianism, however, as illustrated in these books, which judges enforcement of the law of a slave-based society to be morally superior to that of a free-labor society.
 
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jgoodguy

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They forgot another of his books... Lincoln Unmasked

In his reappraisal of the famed president, DiLorenzo is highly critical of Lincoln. Within the book he argues that states within the union had the right at the time of the American Civil War to secede and that the more centralized government that emerged after the war was incompatible with democracy. DiLorenzo also claims that most scholars of the Civil War are biased in their approach to the history because, as DiLorenzo reminds the reader, "in war the victors get to write the history". Dilorenzo also argues that Lincoln was opposed to racial equality, and that many abolitionists, including Lysander Spooner, bitterly hated him.[2]
A knight in bright shining armor defending the truth or a man yelling everybody else is wrong?
 

jgoodguy

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Oh, so DiLorenzo is a Libertarian? Now I really hate him.
A lot of the Evil Lincoln stuff is generated by Libertarians who demonize him as the father of big government. The problem is that at Fort Sumter time, the US army was tiny and mostly out west. The biggest part of the US government was the postal service. They also idolize the Freedoms of the CSA only because the enemy of their enemy must be their friend without considering slavery or looking at the antebellum South which had a lot of repressive features in place to prevent slave revolts.
 
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TJD

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The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, by Thomas J. DiLorenzo; When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, by Charles Adams


(snip)

DiLorenzo and Adams regard Lincoln, like Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster before him, as a one-dimensional politician whose "real agenda" was to create a mercantilist economic order of central banking, discriminatory taxation for the protection of northern industry, and corporate-welfare subsidies (internal improvements). In this interpretation Lincoln was a mythical "great emancipator," a racist white supremacist who did not really care about the well being of Negro slaves. His abiding ambition was "the consolidation of state power"(DiLorenzo, 53).
It is not that a case cannot be made analyzing Lincoln's career from a public choice perspective that views the exercise of political power through the lens of economic calculation. It is that the dogmatic, undiscriminating libertarianism of these authors precludes any realistic consideration of the complexity of political life as it manifestly appears in the historical record. Methodologically, this takes the form of substituting mere assertion for documentary evidence. DiLorenzo, for example, describing Lincoln's "real agenda," writes: "In virtually every one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln made it a point to champion the nationalization of money and to demonize Jackson and the Democrats for their opposition to it" (68). This will come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the debates, which were primarily concerned with the slavery question and matters related to it.
Perhaps the clearest illustration of the kind of reasoning upon which these accounts depend can be seen in the discussion of the secession crisis. Both authors claim that Lincoln provoked the South into war in order to adopt a protective tariff policy favoring northern business interests. Proof of his motivation is found in a statement from Lincoln's first inaugural address, that "The power confided to me, will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion—no using of force against, or among, the people anywhere." According to DiLorenzo, this means that "To Lincoln, slavery was just another political issue subject to compromise. But protectionist tariffs—the keystone of the Republican Party—were nonnegotiable" (237).
To be sure, the tariff laws were profoundly significant, and not simply because of the economic significance of tax revenues for the support of government. Rather law enforcement was an essential attribute of the struggle over national sovereignty, which was the underlying issue in the slavery controversy. Secession elevated that conflict into public view as the paramount issue in American politics. Secession forced a showdown, and neither side was willing to compromise. The stand-off can be regarded from a neutral perspective that accords moral equivalence to the rival claims of Union and Confederate nationality. It is a strangely ahistorical kind of libertarianism, however, as illustrated in these books, which judges enforcement of the law of a slave-based society to be morally superior to that of a free-labor society.
This is a fair assessment of DiLorenzo and doesn't just tear him apart like some hack ie
"To be sure the tariff laws were significant..."

IMHO at this point I see TD guilty of the same thing many here are - promoting propaganda that the North or South was 100% wrong. That it was black or white. To wit, it appears to me that everyone had some parts wrong and some parts right. But admittedly the South got caught up defending the most grievous wrong in that evil institution.
 

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This is a fair assessment of DiLorenzo and doesn't just tear him apart like some hack ie
"To be sure the tariff laws were significant..."

IMHO at this point I see TD guilty of the same thing many here are - promoting propaganda that the North or South was 100% wrong. That it was black or white. To wit, it appears to me that everyone had some parts wrong and some parts right. But admittedly the South got caught up defending the most grievous wrong in that evil institution.
I can defend the South on amoral realpolitik terms, but no other. That makes some folks nervous.
 

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Here is an interesting abolitionist Lysander Spooner for he is a fan of Libertarians... He wrote this book...


The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1845) was a book by American abolitionist Lysander Spooner arguing that the United States Constitution prohibited slavery.[1][2] This view was contrary to that of William Lloyd Garrison who opposed the Constitution on the grounds that it was pro-slavery. In the book, Spooner shows that none of the state governments of the slave states specifically authorized slavery, that the U.S. Constitution contains several clauses that are inconsistent with slavery, that slavery was a violation of natural law, and that the intentions of the Constitutional Convention have no legal bearing on the document they created. Thus, Spooner's position is one that employs original meaning-styled textualism and rejects original intent-styled originalism.

On May 23, 1851, in Change of Opinion Announced, Frederick Douglass attributed his shift in opinion away from Garrison's view that the Constitution was pro-slavery "to Lysander Spooner, Gerrit Smith, and William Goodell. Of all these sources, Spooner likely had the strongest influence on Douglass's method...."


Here is a Libertarian site... You will why they like him...


Lysander Spooner’s The Unconstitutionality of Slavery was one of the most widely circulated and read books written by an abolitionist. It was published in two parts—the first in 1845 and the second in 1847. Part II followed on the heels of a critique of Part 1 by Wendell Phillips, Review of Lysander’s Spooner’s Essay on the Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1847), and much of Part II contains Spooner’s replies to Phillips. Both parts were frequently reprinted, and they were published as a single book in 1847, 1849, 1853, 1856, and 1860. The 1860 printing contains two additional essays, including A Defence for Fugitive Slaves (1850)—Spooner’s devastating critique of the notorious Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which prompted many antislavery activists to use violence to rescue runaway slaves from their captors

Similarly, Garrison wrote this about one of Spooner’s arguments:
His logic may be faultless, as a mere legal effort. We admit Mr. Spooner’s reasoning to be ingenious; perhaps, as an effort of logic, unanswerable. It impresses us as the production of a mind equally honest and acute. Its ability, and the importance of the subject on which it treats, will doubtless secure for it a wide circulation and a careful perusal.
 

5fish

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The Libertarians made him president in an Alternative world SciFi book series... The link has the list of the American Confederacy Presidents an interesting list with Native Americans, a Black Man, and four women presidents... Them Libertarians are progressive, not!


The North American Confederacy is an alternate history series of novels created by L. Neil Smith.[1] The series begins with The Probability Broach and there are eight sequels. The stories take place in a fictional country of the same name.
 

5fish

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Here is Lysander Spooner on taxes... You will see the Libertarian in him... He has a great little spill about Highwayman and taxes... His quote is a good read...


Spooner’s radical individualism was grounded firmly in a theory of natural rights, a theory which in turn was founded on the principle of self-ownership which every individual had in themselves. From this flowed Spooner’s opposition to slavery (it violated the right of self-ownership the slave had in his own person and granted that property right by means of violence to the slave owner). The government played a crucial role in this violation of the slave’s right to self-ownership as it maintained a system of police and law courts which vigorously defended the interests of slave owners at the expence of the slaves' life, liberty and property in themselves. Thus it was not much of jump for Spooner to go from this radical anti-slavery position to his anti-tax position as this quotation indicates. In the former, the government was seen as a “man-stealer”; in the latter, it was seen as a “highwayman”.
 

5fish

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Here is a quote... by Lysander Spooner...


"The ostensible supporters of the Constitution, like the ostensible supporters of most other governments, are made up of three classes, viz.: 1. Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see in the government an instrument which they can use for their own aggrandizement or wealth. 2. Dupes—a large class, no doubt—each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted to have the same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering others, that others have in robbing, enslaving, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a “free man,” a “sovereign”; that this is “a free government”; “a government of equal rights,” “the best government on earth,” and such like absurdities. 3. A class who have some appreciation of the evils of government, but either do not see how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making a change."
 

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The Libertarians made him president in an Alternative world SciFi book series... The link has the list of the American Confederacy Presidents an interesting list with Native Americans, a Black Man, and four women presidents... Them Libertarians are progressive, not!


The North American Confederacy is an alternate history series of novels created by L. Neil Smith.[1] The series begins with The Probability Broach and there are eight sequels. The stories take place in a fictional country of the same name.
they are total bollocks but fun to read
 

5fish

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@jgoodguy , @O' Be Joyful , @rittmeister , @Wehrkraftzersetzer ,

Spooner thought the constitution could not forced on future generation unless the vote for it. Thomas Jefferson thought 9n the same vain. He thought every 19 times have society reapproved the Constitution...


On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation…

Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.

In his mind, “no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law”. The only “umpire” between the generations was the law of nature.”
 

5fish

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This idea of renewing the Constitution I think has legs. Here in Florida every ten years our Constitution is reviewed and recommended changes are put to a vote. Many states have their version of this process... The link talks about a few of them...


The idea of amending constitutions at regular intervals dates back to Thomas Jefferson. In a famous letter, he wrote that we should “provide in our constitution for its revision at stated periods.” “[E]ach generation” should have the “solemn opportunity” to update the constitution “every nineteen or twenty years,” thus allowing it to “be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time.”

The Founding Fathers did not, of course, follow Jefferson’s advice. Not only does the U.S. Constitution not allow for revision by each generation, but it can be amended only by votes of two-thirds of the House and Senate and three-fourths of state legislatures. A number of states, however, proved more receptive to Jefferson’s recommendation. Kentucky, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire embraced periodic convention referenda in the late 18th century, and today 14 state constitutions provide for them. About 100 such votes have been held over the course of American history, succeeding a total of 25 times in eight different states.
 
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